Federal appeals court reinstates jury award for Apple in Samsung patent case News
Federal appeals court reinstates jury award for Apple in Samsung patent case

[JURIST] The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [official website] on Friday reinstated [opinion, PDF] a $120 million jury award owed to Apple by Samsung [corporate websites] in a prolonged patent infringement case involving the companies’ competing smartphones. In 2014 a federal jury found [JURIST report] Samsung guilty of infringing numerous Apple smartphone patents such as the iPhone’s slide-to-lock, autocorrect, and online linking features. Though the company was originally ordered to pay damages, a three-judge panel of the Federal Circuit overturned [opinion, PDF] the verdict in February. Sitting en banc, the full appeals court stated Friday that the panel erred by considering evidence outside the record of the current case. Samsung has therefore been ordered to pay the originally determined damages. The companies have yet to respond to the new ruling.

This is the most recent installment of the ongoing patent dispute [JURIST op-ed] between the two electronics giants. In March the Supreme Court agreed to hear [JURIST report] Samsung’s appeal in another case against Apple. In July Apple filed a brief [JURIST report] asking the Supreme Court [official website] to rule against Samsung in its patent infringement lawsuit. In January the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] granted [JURIST report] Apple’s motion for a permanent injunction against Samsung for infringing upon three software patents. In August 2014 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. Earlier in August 2014 Apple and Samsung agreed to drop [JURIST report] all patent infringement lawsuits in courts outside of the US. In June 2014 Apple and Samsung also agreed to dismiss [JURIST report] their appeals of a patent infringement case at the US International Trade Commission [official website] that resulted in an import ban on some older model Samsung phones.

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