AppleInsider StaffA judge with the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled on Friday in favor of Apple, finding that the iPhone maker did not infringe on patents owned by rival Samsung.
Apple's iPhone, iPad and iPod touch product lines were cleared of accusations of infringement from Samsung, according to Reuters. Specifically, ITC Judge James Gildea's preliminary ruling found that Apple did not violate four patents owned by Samsung.
The complaint was first filed by Samsung in mid-2011. That filing, like most patent infringement suits, sought to bar the sale of Apple products in the U.S.
Gildea's ruling is only preliminary, however, and the full commission must still make a final determination on the case. The ITC will decide whether to overturn Gildea's ruling at a hearing in January.
The ITC decision is yet another victory for Apple, which won a crucial battle last month when a California jury found that Samsung has infringed upon Apple's patented inventions. The jury had recommended that Apple be awarded $1.05 billion in damages from the South Korean electronics maker.
Though already numerous, the lawsuits between Samsung and Apple may continue to grow. Earlier this week, before the iPhone 5 was even unveiled, The Korea Times issued a report citing "ranking officials" at Samsung who allegedly indicated their company was preparing to sue Apple for infringing upon its 4G LTE patents.
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37 Comments
F U Sammy!
Shouldn't that read ...preparing to sue Qualcomm...?
I wonder if Samsung's plans to sue over 4G LTE got derailed by Apple not supporting SVD over LTE in the iPhone 5. Apple may be just waiting for Samsung--or more likely some other entity--to submit their voice-over-LTE patents for FRAND licensing.
Wah, wah, wah Samsung. It's too bad we can't just dink Samsung's mobile division right off the planet for selling junk.
[quote name="Cyberzombie" url="/t/152605/us-itc-judge-rules-apple-does-not-violate-samsung-patents#post_2189973"] Shouldn't that read ...preparing to sue [B]Qualcomm[/B]...? [/quote] The story was that Samsung was to sue Apple. This isn't uncommon. Apple may buy the chips from Qualcomm but that doesn't mean that the IP in the chip, used and licensed by Qualcomm, doesn't also have additional licensing for vendors that use the IP in their products. This license fee tends to be a percentage of the first sale total retail cost of the completed device. I'm sure Apple has no problem with paying that fee for the first sale total recall cost, but I bet what Apple and Samsung consider to be the first sale cost are very different. It's been reported in the past that Apple buys the completed product from Foxconn. This is the first sale. Then Apple acts a distributor and then sells it with their mark up, thus reducing the license fees considerably.