US judge denies Apple’s request to ban Samsung smartphones
18 Dec 2012
A US judge yesterday denied Apple's request for a permanent injunction against Samsung Electronics' smartphones.
Earlier in November a US judge threw out Apple's lawsuit against Google's Motorola Mobility subsidiary for claiming exorbitant licencing fees for essential patents (See: US judge dismisses Apple's patent lawsuit against Google's Motorola Mobility).
In August, Apple had been awarded $1.05 billion in damages following the finding of a US jury that Samsung had copied critical features of the iPhone and iPad. The products from Samsung run on the Android operating system, developed by Google.
Following the jury verdict, Apple asked US district judge Lucy Koh in San Jose to clamp a permanent sales ban against 26 Samsung phones, most of them old, though there was scope for an injunction against newer Galaxy products from Samsung.
In her order yesterday, Koh found that Apple had failed to provide enough evidence of its patented features driving consumer demand for the entire iPhone.
"The phones at issue in this case contain a broad range of features, only a small fraction of which are covered by Apple's patents," Koh wrote.
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