A long ongoing patent case between Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. was finally put to an end by a Federal Appeals Court on Friday, where a panel of three judges reversed a 2014 verdict which had forced the Korean company to pay $119.6 million fine for infringing patents.
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In December of previous year, Samsung did agree to pay Apple $548 million, under the condition that it ‘reserved the right to collect reimbursement if there are any further developments in the case, ‘ as our John Ribeiro reported at the time.
Apple pointed to the commercial success of the iPhone as evidence that the patents were not obvious, but the federal circuit rejected this stating that “a reasonable jury could therefore not find a nexus between the patented feature and the commercial success of the iPhone”.
Apple and Samsung have battled it out in courtrooms over the past several years, and although they agreed to a truce on many of their lawsuits, some of the big USA ones are still dragging out. One of the patents is ‘647 patent, so-called “quick links” technology, that allows a user to click certain data such as a web page or a phone number and he or she will be linked to the page or to make a phone call. Apple had asserted that Samsung violated its quick links patent in the analyzer server, but the appeals court saw that Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones run the quick links feature not from the server but from each device. That case has been appealed to the US Supreme Court. The slide-to-unlock and auto-correct patents accounted for the remainder of the damages. Many courts in other countries have ruled Apple’s slide-to-unlock patent is invalid.
According to Bloomberg, the nullified patents in question include one that covers the “slide to unlock” mechanism on the iPhone.
Three Apple patents and two Samsung patents were at issue in the appeal ruled on Friday. The ruling directs Apple to pay Samsung $158,000 in damages.
Apple has declined to comment on the issue.
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Chicago-based patent lawyer Bradley Hulbert, who has followed the litigation, said the decision is “a clear signal that Apple is not invincible and that alternative operating systems are here to stay”.
