Following two separate injunctions banning U.S. sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smartphone and Galaxy Tab 10.1, the Korean company has now been dealt a third major blow in its legal crusade against Apple, with Judge Lucy Koh denying ll 12 of the company’s summary judgment requests against Apple in one sweep.
Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents:
On Saturday, Judge Koh denied the entirety of a comprehensive summary judgment motion that Samsung brought in May. Samsung attacked the validity of each and every one of the intellectual property rights asserted by Apple at this stage as well as Apple’s FRAND-related antitrust claims, and failed all the way. It is very unusual for such a multi-pronged motion by a major industry player to fail entirely.
Koh’s decision doesn’t necessarily mean that Samsung’s claims aren’t valid, and doesn’t dismiss them from trial – it does, however, cast significant doubt on Samsung’s ability to persuade a court that they are being wronged in regards to the patents involved in those cases.
In addition, a large amount of “expert” testimony in Samsung’s favor has been blocked from trial, and Samsung is left with only six claims against Apple that haven’t been dismissed or denied, compared to the 12 that Apple still has against Samsung.
This is Samsung’s third major legal setback in the course of a week, suggesting a dim outlook for Samsung in the ongoing patent case against Apple. Mueller’s agrees that things don’t seem to look good for the Korean company:
I think the litigation has reached a point at which Judge Koh realizes perfectly well that Samsung and its “partner in crime” Google are infringers (whose counterclaims are dubious at least), and that the full force of the law must be brought to bear.
As always, things could change – but for now, it looks like Samsung’s lawyers will be working a bit of overtime.
