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Japanese court finds Apple did not infringe on two Samsung patents

A Japanese court has rejected two patent infringement claims lodged by Samsung against Apple, marking yet another country where Apple has found courtroom success against its rival.

Intellectual property expert Florian Mueller said with Apple's latest victories in Japan, it's just another example of how "Apple is on the winning track" worldwide against Samsung. He noted that outside of Korea, the only case that Samsung has won on the offensive came in the Netherlands, and even that wasn't a major victory.

"Samsung's problem is not that there were two non-wins in Japan," Mueller wrote on Monday. "Samsung's problem is that Apple has won a variety of rulings (even if none of them had or has the potential to force Samsung out of a major market) while Samsung hasn't won anything meaningful outside of Korea, and nothing anywhere in the world over a non-standard-essential patent."

The Tokyo District Court made two rulings over the past two months in Apple's favor. One Sept. 14 decision found that Apple did not infringe on a Samsung patent related to application downloads, while an Oct. 11 ruling said Apple did not violate a Samsung patent related to airplane mode on mobile devices.

Monitoring lawsuits is difficult in Japan, which is why the rulings had not come to light before a story published over the weekend by The Asahi Shimbun. For now, it is believed that Samsung has one more patent infringement claim against Apple in Japan related to the utilization of home screen space.

Though it wasn't on the offensive, Samsung did secure a win in the Tokyo District Court in August, when it was found that the Korean electronics giant did not infringe on certain utility patents owned by Apple. The iPhone maker has since appealed that decision.