The legal battle between Apple and Samsung continues today, as a dutch judge in The Hague has ruled that Samsung has violated one patent, and ordered the company to stop marketing the Galaxy S, SII and Ace in the Netherlands.
The ruling isn’t a complete loss for Samsung, however. The judge ruled that while Samsung did violate patent 2,059,868, a method of scrolling, the company didn’t not violate Apple’s patents for recording a flag in connection with multiple screen taps (2,098,948), or the patent that relates to dragging a slider to unlock the phone (1,964,022).
For those keeping score this battle probably results in a tie. On one hand, Samsung can’t market their product, but on the other Apple lost 2 out of the 3 patent violation fights. Bizarrely, Engadget has pointed out that the feature that does violate Apple’s patent, the gallery application, is a native Android application, and not something Samsung would have created or designed itself. This may open up a crack to sue Google, but as it stands, it’s starting to look like another judge has sided with Samsung, again.
Last week a German judge overturned an injunction filed by Apple against Samsung that originally resulted in the Galaxy Tab 10.1 being barred from sales throughout the European Union. As it turns out the German judge argued that the original injunction was unlawful, and overturned the original ruling. Some have speculated that the overturning had to do with a jurisdiction problem, and whether or not the judge had the right to rule on an injunction facing Samsung.
This isn’t going to end any time soon, so strap yourself in for a long ride. Before we know it, Apple’s legal battles may pass Apple rumor posts in frequenc.
Source: Engadget
