[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [official website] on Monday ordered [opinion, PDF] the reconsideration of Apple’s request for an injunction against Samsung [corporate websites] products based on allegations of utility patent infringement. A jury for the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] originally awarded Apple a $1.05 billion judgment [JURIST report] against Samsung in 2012. However, Judge Lucy Koh later reduced the damages award [JURIST report] by $450 million because she found that the jury calculated damages for certain infringing Samsung products based on improper legal grounds. The appellate court ruled unanimously that this judgement represented an abuse of discretion, stating that the judge should have given more consideration to the evidence of harm offered by Apple. The appellate court did uphold the trial court’s decision to deny injunction against Sumsung for alleged infringement of design patents.

Apple has been involved in a protracted patent litigation battle [JURIST op-ed] with Samsung that spans four continents. The two companies have been engaged in patent litigation since 2010, each filing lawsuits against the other over the design and functionality of their devices. US President Barack Obama’s administration last month upheld a decision [JURIST report] by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) [official website] to ban some Samsung products on the grounds that the products infringed on designs patented by Apple. In September the European Commission [official website] instructed Samsung to offer more concessions [JURIST report] in their proposal to settle antitrust charges. In August the Obama administration overturned [official text, PDF] a US trade panel ban on the sale of older iPads and iPhones. In June the Tokyo District Court ruled for Apple [JURIST report] in a patent infringement suit. Similarly in March a UK court also ruled for Apple permitting continued use of technology [JURIST report] that allows transfers of information over the third-generation networks that are used by smartphones. In January a Dutch court ruled that the designs of some Galaxy Tab models produced by Samsung do not infringe designs patented by Apple [JURIST report].