Recently Apple
won a major victory “at home” and lost (partly) “on the road” in South Korea, where a court last Friday issued a split decision in its IP litigation with Samsung. Earlier today Samsung won a round: a court in Japan found that the Korean company did not infringe Apple patents that involve “synchronizing music and video data with servers.”
From the published reports it appears the court was skeptical of Apple’s claim to such basic functionality. Following the decision, Samsung shares gained back some of the losses they suffered in the wake of the major defeat the company suffered a week ago in the US.
Apple and Samsung have sued each other on just about every continent in the world other than Africa and Antarctica. Courts in the “West” appear somewhat more favorably inclined toward Apple, while Asian courts seem more predisposed toward “hometown” favorite Samsung. That’s an oversimplification of course but the forum does seem to be a factor in these decisions.
To my knowledge the only case that didn’t involve a judge or quasi-judicial body making a determination on the merits has been the US federal court jury in San Jose last week.
The US case has yet to fully play out, with a December 6 hearing set for a decision on Apple’s request for a permanent injunction against eight infringing Samsung devices. Regardless of the outcome Samsung will be appealing any decision.
Yesterday we discussed a report that Apple and Google are engaged in informal talks to resolve their IP issues, which could result in a kind of “détente” between the companies.
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