JURIST - Paper Chase: Netherlands court bans Samsung smartphones that infringe on Apple patents

[JURIST] A Netherlands court ruled on Wednesday to ban certain Samsung Electronics smartphones that infringe on Apple [corporate websites] patents. The court ordered Samsung to pay Apple 100,000 euros for every day that it violates [Bloomberg report] the court's ruling. The court also ordered Samsung to pay damages [Reuters report] to Apple based on the amount it receives through sales. The amount of its profits that Samsung must pay Apple will be determined in a separate court proceeding. As a result of the ruling, the Netherlands has now banned certain Galaxy tablets and smartphones, which use the Android operating system. The ruling will only affect sales of older Samsung products after Samsung last year changed the feature on its smartphones that violated Apple's patent for navigating through photos on the phone.

The Netherlands court's ruling is the latest in the patent litigation battle [JURIST op-ed] between Apple and Samsung. Last week Apple filed a motion [JURIST report] in the US District Court for the Northern District of California requesting permission to add six additional products to its patent infringement claim against Samsung Electronics. According to court documents, Apple sought to supplement its claim with newer Samsung products brought to market after the original lawsuit was filed in February. Last month a judge for the US International Trade Commission issued a preliminary ruling [JURIST report] that Samsung infringed four of Apple's patents relating to smartphone design and touchscreen technology. In October the Dutch Rechtbank's-Gravenhage court ruled that Samsung did not infringe [JURIST report] on an Apple software patent. In the same month a UK court also ruled that Samsung did not infringe [JURIST report] on an Apple design patent.