The judge in the landmark Apple v. Samsung patent case today ended a three-month-old sales ban on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, giving Samsung a small victory after its crushing $1 billion loss to Apple.
One of the bright spots for Samsung in last month's verdict was the jury ruling that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 did not infringe a design patent. The tablet did infringe other Apple patents, but not the one that was the basis of a sales ban on the Tab issued on June 26 by US District Court Judge Lucy Koh. Samsung attempted to get the ban overturned after the jury ruling, but it had also previously appealed the June 26 injunction to a higher court. As a result, Koh was unable to overturn the injunction immediately since she no longer had jurisdiction. Jurisdiction was returned to Koh Friday with a US Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruling allowing her to decide the issue, and she promptly granted Samsung's motion to dissolve the sales ban today (PDF).
Koh dismissed an argument from Apple that the court should wait until post-trial motions are resolved before deciding whether to end the sales ban. "The public has no interest in enjoining a non-infringing product, and thus any market disruption caused by dissolution would be insignificant compared to Samsung's interest in restoring its product to market," Koh wrote today. In addition to granting Samsung's motion to dissolve the injunction, she retained the $2.6 million bond Apple posted as a condition of obtaining the preliminary injunction.
The purpose of this bond was to pay Samsung's costs in the event that it was wrongfully harmed by the sales ban, but whether Samsung will see any of that money has not yet been determined. "The question of whether Samsung was wrongfully enjoined is inextricably intertwined with the Court’s resolution of the post-trial motions," Koh wrote. "Accordingly, the Court will retain the bond pending resolution of the post-trial motions." The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is not Samsung's newest tablet, so the amount of lost sales may be minimal.
Despite the trial being over, there is still much at stake. Samsung has moved for a new trial, claiming jury misconduct, while Apple is seeking bans on additional devices and another $707 million in damages.
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