Apple last week scored two important legal victories as its ongoing battle against Samsung rages on. Just days after US District Judge Lucy Koh granted Apple's request for a prelminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Koh this past Friday also granted Apple's request for a preliminary injunction with respect to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone.
Apple last week scored two important legal victories as its ongoing battle against Samsung rages on. Just days after US District Judge Lucy Koh granted Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Koh this past Friday also granted Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction with respect to the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone.
While Samsung will undoubtedly appeal both rulings, you better believe that Samsung has to be shaking in their boots. It’s one thing to battle these issues out in court, but once a preliminary injunction hits and products are taken off the shelves, well, that has an immediate impact on Samsung’s bottom line. And you better believe that Google is also a tad concerned given that the Galaxy Nexus was the flagship Android Ice Cream Sandwich device, considered the Cadillac of Android handsets so to speak.
Koh explained in her Friday ruling that “Apple has made a clear showing that, in the absence of a preliminary injunction, it is likely to lose substantial market share in the smartphone market and to lose substantial downstream sales of future smartphone purchases and tag-along products.”
Reuters writes:
Koh scheduled a hearing on Monday to consider whether to put the Galaxy Nexus injunction on hold pending appeal. And she said in court that she might rule on Sunday whether or to similarly put on hold the earlier injunction on the Galaxy Tab.
To secure the injunction, Apple will have to post a bond of $95 million in the event that the injunction was later found to have been granted erroneously and Apple loses on the merits once the trial concludes.
Apple first filed its motion for a preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Nexus back in February and its motion focused on 4 patents; unified search, analysis and linking of data structures, slide to unlock, and auto completion.
With respect to the patent regarding analysis and linking of data structures, you might remember that Apple has already had success with this patent in its legal battle with HTC. As a quick illustration, one implementation of the patent concerns “data tapping”, with one example describing an event whereby a device’s mail client detects a phone number within an email and subsequently makes it a clickable item that, when pressed, will launch the dialer app.
The full order doesn’t appear to be online just yet but it’ll be interesting to see which patents in particular Koh found most persuasive once the order becomes available.
In any event, that’s two injunctions against Samsung products in the span of just a week.
There is one difference in the injunctions, though, that’s worth noting. While the patents Apple relies upon in its injunction against the Galaxy Nexus are technical, the patent Apple used in its attack on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was a design patent that centered on the form factor of the device.
Now publicly, Samsung seems to brushing off the implications of the injunctions. With respect to the Galaxy Tab 10.1, for example, Samsung reportedly issued a statement to a Korean newspaper claiming that the impact won’t be terribly significant “since the successor model to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is already on the market” – referring of course to the Galaxy Tab 2 10.1.
But try as Samsung might to casually brush aside these recent injunctions, and even taking into account that these injunctions apply to products that have already been on the market for some time, these victories for Apple can only strengthen their case and resolve as they might very well seek more injunctions in other jurisdictions and against other Samsung products.
Remember that back in early June Apple filed a motion asking the court to include the Galaxy S III in its motion for a preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Nexus.
The motion reads in part:
Apple has been able to obtain the Galaxy S III sold in the United Kingdom and determined that this device clearly infringes at least two of the Apple patents at issue in the preliminary injunction motion for the exact same reasons as the Galaxy Nexus.
The two patents referenced by Apple include unified search and the linking of data structures. What’s more, Apple argues that sales of the Galaxy S II will irreparably “harm Apple for the same reasons as the Galaxy Nexus, but on a much greater scale.”
That motion, however, was denied as Koh noted that blocking sales of Samsung’s Galaxy S III would “overload her calendar, given Apple’s high-stakes trial over other Samsung devices set for July that she is overseeing.”
Nevertheless, it’s clear that Apple will continue to go after each allegeldy infringing Samsung device as its released. And with two injunctions now in the books, barring any changes on Monday, the stakes have been raised.
Again, legal battles are one thing, but once injunctions begin being granted, the game changes. Bottom lines are affected and the cost benefit analysis becomes a whole lot more real.
