Judge finds Samsung to infringe Apple patent, invalidates Samsung patent in second California trial
U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh on Tuesday entered an order granting in part Apple's summary judgment for the upcoming Apple v. Samsung trial, finding Samsung to infringe on one patent, while invalidating another belonging to the Korean company.
Screenshot of Galaxy Nexus UI used to argue infringement of Apple's autocorrect patent.
Source: U.S. District Court
In her summary judgment, Judge Koh ruled Samsung devices in question infringe on Apple's U.S. Patent No. 8,074,172 for autocorrect functionality in iOS, while a Samsung patent covering multimedia synchronization was found invalid. As first noted by FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller, the orders relate to two Apple motions for summary judgment in an upcoming case slated to begin in March.
Judge Koh presided over the landmark Apple v. Samsung jury trial -- currently in post-trial proceedings -- and will oversee the two companies' second California patent case in spring. The jurist previously laid down ground rules for both parties, limiting each side's infringement contentions to 15 accused devices and ten asserted claims from five patents.
With Tuesday's partial granting of Apple motion for a summary judgment, Judge Koh also invalidated one of Samsung's patents-in-suit, bringing the count down to four for the Korean tech giant. Samsung was asserting three claims from U.S. Patent No. 7,577,757, which covers synchronization of multimedia content across multiple devices.
The Galaxy device maker acquired the property in 2011, well into the firm's patent battle with Apple. Mueller speculates Samsung obtained the patent primarily for use as a weapon against Apple in future litigation.
In any case, Judge Koh found the property invalid as Apple successfully argued prior art to each Samsung claim.
Mueller points out that Judge Koh's order is in line with pre-trial proceedings of the first Apple v. Samsung trial that took place in the summer of 2012. At the time, Samsung was denied each of its summary judgment requests in the case, while Apple was cleared of infringing one of three Samsung patents.
This time around, Apple may be in an even better position as it already has one patent deemed infringed, meaning counsel only needs to defend the property's validity during trial. It also has four other patents in play, though Judge Koh denied summary judgments for two of these in her Tuesday order.
Finally, Samsung found no joy in its own motion for summary judgment as the jurist denied it in full.
The second Northern California Apple v. Samsung patent trial is scheduled to start on March 31.
Screenshot of Galaxy Nexus UI used to argue infringement of Apple's autocorrect patent.
Source: U.S. District Court
In her summary judgment, Judge Koh ruled Samsung devices in question infringe on Apple's U.S. Patent No. 8,074,172 for autocorrect functionality in iOS, while a Samsung patent covering multimedia synchronization was found invalid. As first noted by FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller, the orders relate to two Apple motions for summary judgment in an upcoming case slated to begin in March.
Judge Koh presided over the landmark Apple v. Samsung jury trial -- currently in post-trial proceedings -- and will oversee the two companies' second California patent case in spring. The jurist previously laid down ground rules for both parties, limiting each side's infringement contentions to 15 accused devices and ten asserted claims from five patents.
With Tuesday's partial granting of Apple motion for a summary judgment, Judge Koh also invalidated one of Samsung's patents-in-suit, bringing the count down to four for the Korean tech giant. Samsung was asserting three claims from U.S. Patent No. 7,577,757, which covers synchronization of multimedia content across multiple devices.
The Galaxy device maker acquired the property in 2011, well into the firm's patent battle with Apple. Mueller speculates Samsung obtained the patent primarily for use as a weapon against Apple in future litigation.
In any case, Judge Koh found the property invalid as Apple successfully argued prior art to each Samsung claim.
Mueller points out that Judge Koh's order is in line with pre-trial proceedings of the first Apple v. Samsung trial that took place in the summer of 2012. At the time, Samsung was denied each of its summary judgment requests in the case, while Apple was cleared of infringing one of three Samsung patents.
This time around, Apple may be in an even better position as it already has one patent deemed infringed, meaning counsel only needs to defend the property's validity during trial. It also has four other patents in play, though Judge Koh denied summary judgments for two of these in her Tuesday order.
Finally, Samsung found no joy in its own motion for summary judgment as the jurist denied it in full.
The second Northern California Apple v. Samsung patent trial is scheduled to start on March 31.
Comments
BOOM, BABY.
Cue the blandroids spinning this story in 3...2...1
SUCK IT SCAMSUMG!!!!! SUUUUUUCK IT!!!
Only down side, tomorrow Wall Scum will downgrade and short AAPL for this...
It's about time.
Ban all Samsung phone products so that they get the message.
Samsung insists on shamelessly copying Apple's software and hardware designs and then playing the justice system for time.
'blandroids'? Are you posting from a Galaxy Nexus?
Waiting to see the same people who complains she's a traitor-asian, whatever-insult-pleases-them, suddenly forgetting whatever they said because the decision is this time in Apple's favor.
I'm happy I'm not her, the amount of hate is too high for me whenever people start feeling companies are a kind of church gathering...
Maybe it's time to point out that the fat lady hasn't even reached the stadium yet, let alone begun to sing.
This is a saga, not an anecdote and we've reached...what?...page 5 of 350.
Is this important. To Apple stock price tomorrow?
No because who really cares about Apple's stock price???? All everyone worries about is Apple's god damn stock price.
Its artificially inflated and deflated on the fly all the time anyways so what does it really matter anymore?
I don't know, I think people that, you know, own Apple stock would have a pretty good reason to wonder about it.
The Galaxy device maker acquired the property in 2011, well into the firm's patent battle with Apple. Mueller speculates Samsung obtained the patent primarily for use as a weapon against Apple in future litigation.
When it's about Apple vs Google / Android / Samsung .... Do Not Let Them Call You Apple / iSheep / Fanboys! Never ... EVER!
http://www.theverge.com/2014/1/21/5307992/inside-the-mind-of-a-fanboy
Correct. What Koh offered summary judgement on was that Samsung was infringing on that particular patent. Still to come is a trial where whether that patents asserted claim is actually valid will be considered. If not valid it won't be infringed either. If it survives the invalidity challenge then the only additional thing the jury needs to consider will be damages for it.
It looks like as Google did, Samsung was trying to bolster its position by acquiring patents, as we are seeing unless you were the inventor at hand, they may not be much use to you unless you are suing in TX where the love the patent troll.
From playing with an android device I've noticed that their "autocorrect" interface seems to go further than merely suggesting one replacement for a misspelled word; it actually tries to predict what word you'll type next before you actually start typing. For example, after I type "Harry" the keyboard lists "Potter" as one of the three suggestions. Or after entering "Affordable c", it offers to complete "c" to "Care" (with a capital C). Does the autocorrect patent specify what the algorithm is used to provide the suggested replacements, or does it lay claim to all possible algorithms?
Looks like a great example of taking Muse to the extreme if I'm not mistaken ... forget the content, that page gave me vertigo!