Date:27/08/12

Apple wins patent infringement case against Samsung

Apple has won its high-stakes intellectual property infringement suit against Samsung, the Computing reported.

The court in the US state of California, where Apple is based, found that Samsung infringed six out of seven Apple patents, while backing Apple's claim that Samsung had breached US anti-trust laws by trying to keep its patents covering wireless technology as a monopoly.

However, the court awarded Apple just $1.05bn (£665m) in damages, well below the $2.75bn (£1.75bn) maximum that Apple had demanded. Apple will now seek to ban imports of infringing Samsung products from the US.

The response from Samsung to the verdict was cutting: "It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies," it said in a statement.

Apple will be able to use the judgement as ammunition in its ongoing legal actions against other Android-phone makers, including HTC and Motorola Mobility, the mobile phone making arm of Motorola, which Android-maker Google acquired earlier this year.

In October 2010, Apple had sought to persuade Samsung to acquire a licence from Apple covering all the patents examined in this case. However, that licence would also have obliged Samsung to pay Apple royalties on all its phones, not just Android phones, including 'feature phones' that predate Apple's involvement in the phone industry.

Similar cases around the world have been met with more mixed results. Earlier in the day, a South Korean court delivered a split decision when it ruled that both sides had infringed on the other's patents.
The High Court in London, meanwhile, earlier in the summer rejected a suit brought by Apple against Samsung and ordered it to publish notices on its website explicitly stating that Samsung did not copy Apple.

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