A judge representing the Seoul Central District Court in South Korea has dismissed a Samsung lawsuit stating that Apple had infringed on three of the company's patents, removing the opportunity for Samsung to receive monetary benefits and impose a sales ban on the iPhone 4S and iPad 2, reports Reuters. The verdict comes after a August 2012 ruling by a South Korean court declaring that Samsung and Apple had violated each others patents, ultimately resulting in the sales ban of some older products from both companies in South Korea.
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A judge at the Seoul Central District Court said Apple products such as the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5 and iPad2 did not violate Samsung patents on short message display methods and messaging grouping features.
The court ruled against a sale ban on the products and threw out Samsung's claim for 100 million won ($95,100) in damages.
"We are glad the Korean court joined others around the world in standing up for real innovation and rejecting Samsung's ridiculous claims," Apple Korea spokesman Steve Park said.
In the same ruling, the court also fined Samsung 25 million won (approximately $23,800) for violating the "rubber banding" patent that enables a visual effect when scrolling through a page on a touch-screen device.
Last year, Samsung was ordered to pay Apple a total of $1.05 billion after a U.S. jury found the South Korean company guilty of willfully violating multiple Apple patents. Back in March, Judge Lucy Koh struck $450 million from the $1 billion awarded to Samsung after deciding the jury may have miscalculated the damages due to a misunderstanding of patent issues.
A retrial held last month found Samsung liable for $290 million in damages. The company replying to the verdict by filing a motion to halt payment, requesting a reevaluation of the validity of No. 7,844,915 covering Apple's “pinch-to-zoom“ gestures. The motion to stay the damages however was denied, with a reevaluation of the pinch-to-zoom patent still set to take place.
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(View all)What will the Android users be saying against Apple's win in California now?
Can you explain why Schmidt was needed to do that?
there's a reason why schmidt later was excused when the board discussed iphone. and a reason he was dismissed altogether.is people really believing this nonsense?
If Jobs or Apple believed that Schmidt did anything like that, they would have sued him for industrial theft. They never ever said anything about Schmidt.
please, stop with that crap, Schmidt didn't stole anything, because there was no need to steal anything. and if you think apple/Google board members can steal source code, you're very naive
Steve Jobs only said anything about Android in 2010, almost two years after the release and almost a year after Schmidt left Apple boards.
And he was angry about the multi touch thing, thing that was not really patented by them
I hope this helps people get past the ethnocentrism and stereotyping of people, because this story is an instance showing that there are judges in Korea that follow the law just like there are everywhere else. Painting a country with a broad brush is very naive.
Like there aren't any corrupt judges in the US.