A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, Samsung products were under attack. Fresh off of its 2012 patent trial victory, Apple moved against Samsung again, advocating for a ban on several Samsung products that it claims infringe upon Apple patents. Once again, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled against the ban, stating that Apple's jedi mind trick only works on the weak minded.
Apple hoped to get a permanent ban on 23 different Samsung products, but Koh announced on Thursday that Apple "has not established that it is entitled to the permanent injunction it seeks." The evidence in the case was simply too insubstantial to justify such a ban. Koh's initial ruling was the same back in 2012 after Apple won nearly $1 billion in damages from Samsung. Koh then stated that Apple had to prove that Samsung's infringement on its patents had significantly harmed sales of Apple products.
Then, in November of 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ordered Koh to revisit Apple's case for a ban, which had supposedly been strengthened. Clearly, Apple's efforts to convince Koh fell flat. She even suggested that Apple seemed to have inflated and exaggerated reports to make its case for the ban, saying that customers don't put as much importance on patented features that are involved in the dispute.
"A multitude of other survey evidence not prepared for the purpose of litigation," Koh wrote in her decision. "Indicates that numerous features that were not tested - such as battery life, MP3 player functionality, operating system, text messaging options, GPS, and processor speed - are highly important to consumers."
Koh also noted that Apple was unable to show documented evidence that Samsung's infringement helped decrease iPhone sales significantly. A sale decrease would indeed be difficult to prove, given the fact that Apple's iPhones have a history of selling incredibly well and destroying expectations. Naturally, Samsung was pleased with the verdict.
"We... agree with its observation that a few software features alone don't drive consumer demand for Samsung products - rather consumers value a multitude of features," Samsung said.
Koh also filed her final judgment on the $930 million Samsung owes Apple in damages. Samsung has said that it will fight the ruling again. Later this month, Apple and Samsung will meet again in a patent lawsuit over several different patents. Recently, the two tech giants met in hopes of resolving the dispute, but talks fell through once again.
