[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [official website] ruled [opinion, PDF] Thursday that Apple should have received an injunction barring Samsung [corporate websites] from selling any devices that infringe on Apple’s patents. The Federal Circuit panel ruled 2-1 that an injunction should have been given to Apple by the lower district court and added that Samsung will be able to sell its devices without the features protected by Apple’s patents.The Apple patents at issue relate to cellphone features such as autocorrect, lock screens and data detection applications. In the majority opinion, Circuit Judge Moore stated that “This is not a case where the public would be deprived of Samsung’s products. Apple does not seek to enjoin the sale of lifesaving drugs, but to prevent Samsung from profiting from the unauthorized use of infringing features in its cellphones and tablets.”

Apple has been involved in a great deal of patent disputes with large technology companies over the past decade. In May the Federal Circuit affirmed [JURIST report] Apple’s smartphone patent victory against Samsung but remanded the case to the lower court to reduce the damages that must be paid to Apple. The court upheld the district court’s determination that Samsung infringed on some of Apple’s patented iPhone technology but also found that Samsung should have prevailed over Apple’s “trade dress” arguments. In August the US District Court for the Northern District of California denied [JURIST report] Apple’s request to ban Samsung from selling any of its products that infringed on Apple’s patented technology. Also in August Apple and Samsung agreed to drop [JURIST report] all patent infringement lawsuits in courts outside of the US.