Samsung’s claims that Apple infringed on two of its patents have been rejected by a Japanese court, continuing Apple’s winning streak. Intellectual property expert over at FOSS Patents, Florian Mueller, said that with this win, “Apple is on the winning track” against Samsung all over the world.
Mueller went on to say that, outside of Korea, the only case that Samsung has won on the offensive side was in the Netherlands, which wasn’t even a major victory. The rulings were made by the Tokyo District Court on September 14 and October 11. The first ruling found that Apple did not infringe on a Samsung patent related to application downloads and the second ruling said Apple did not infringe on a patent related to airplane mode on mobile devices.
It’s difficult to monitor lawsuits in Japan, which is why the rulings were only just made public over the weekend by the Asahi Shimbun. Samsung did have a win on the defensive side in the Tokyo District Court in August, though, when the court found that they did not infringe on certain utility patents owned by Apple. Since this ruling Apple has appealed the decision.
According to Mueller, “Samsung’s problem is not that there were two non-wins in Japan. 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.”
If you’re trying to keep score, which is pretty hard to do with all the lawsuits going on around the world, it sounds like Apple’s winning where it matters most. Well, winning the patent lawsuit at least. We’re not entirely sure that they’re winning over any new fans with all the litigation.
Image Credit: Winnipeg Free Press
