Samsung Galaxy Nexus Ban Overturned 140
Maow writes with word that the U.S. Federal Appeals Court has reversed a sales ban on Samsung's Galaxy Nexus phone. According to the decision (PDF), "Regardless of the extent to which Apple may be injured by the sales of the Galaxy Nexus, there is not a sufficient showing that the harm flows from Samsung’s alleged infringement. ...the district court abused its discretion in enjoining the sales of the Galaxy Nexus." The ruling also said Apple didn't do a good enough job showing that the allegedly infringing features were "core" to the Nexus's operation. The case centered on what is called "unified search," a method for bringing together search results from multiple places, such as a device's internal memory and the internet at large (U.S. Patent #8,086,604). "Apple must show that consumers buy the Galaxy Nexus because it is equipped with the apparatus claimed in the ’604 patent—not because it can search in general, and not even because it has unified search."
Seams Apple now owes Samsung A chunck of cash.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I.E.. Apple forfeits some of the bond they posted for PI, up to 96.5 million dollars, maybe more.
This ruling can also put a serious dent in the Apple's victory over Samsung SJ court. The same reasoning will overturn that verdict as well. (Apple didn't show they were damaged by Customers seeking out those specific patented features.)
Additionally those features represent a tiny fraction of the overall value of the phones.. (big hit to damages award),
Hooray, someone gets it (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hooray, someone gets it (Score:2, Interesting)
If the Nexus didn't have any features, then it would cease being a popular brand. That's kind of the point that Apple was trying to make.
A good example (Score:4, Interesting)
A very good example of how our legal system would be improved by a 3-strikes rule.
If a court case is overturned on appeals, clearly, the lower court not only didn't do their job but in fact caused a 3-fold increase in the burden borne by the court system: the original court trial, the appellate hearing, and the subsequent case.
I've always wondered why, when an appellate court overrules a judge, there's no consequence for the judge. Simply put - if a judge is overturned 3 times, he obviously shouldn't be a judge any longer.
(If judges are particularly rare or dear, and we need them, implement some sort of "3rd strike = 25% pay cut for 1 year" rule to significantly punish these individuals that are so critical to our legal system.
Re:Laugh... (Score:5, Interesting)
Free markets cannot exist, full stop. For instance, every time a companies actions have negative externalities - costs that affect others who aren't doing business with them - that distorts the market even if there's no government, because it means the free market price of their product doesn't reflect the actual cost. We see this with global warming; in fact that's one reason why libertarians are so keen on insisting that it doesn't exist despite the actual evidence. There's a related problem with (for instance) deep sea fishing called the tragedy of the commons - without government intervention the free market would wipe out fish stocks and drive fishermen into bankrupcy, despite the fact that this makes everyone else worse off.
That's before we even get into the problems with false advertising and food and drug mislabelling, and the consistent inability of the free market to deal with it, or natural monopolies and rent-seeking behaviour, or...