ITC Judge Rules Samsung Infringing On Another Apple Patent

An International Trade Commission (ITC) judge has ruled in a preliminary decision that Samsung is infringing on a key part of an Apple patent. The patent covers a text selection feature for its smartphones and tablets. The judge also ruled that Samsung was not infringing on another patent that covered detecting whether an audio device was plugged into the audio jack or not.

This preliminary decision was reached on March the 26th and was a second look at two patents that had previously been ruled upon in favour of Apple. The ruling was kept under wraps until now to allow the companies to redact financially sensitive business information. The full commission now has a big decision on its hands which is to decide to either uphold or overturn the judges decision. No doubt Samsung will be pressing for an overturn while Apple will want it to be upheld and enforced.

If the ruling is upheld then all infringing devices can be banned from importation into the USA. Apple claims infringing products include all from the Galaxy, Nexus and Transform series. This means out of the seven patents Apple originally claimed Samsung were infringing on (back in mid-2011 when the case was issued), the judges at the ITC have ruled they are infringing upon three of the seven. One was dropped from litigation and three others were deemed to not have been infringed upon.

This case is part of the ongoing legal battle between Samsung and Apple which has taken place in ten countries since 2011. The legal battle is expected to continue as Apple continues to hunt Google and their Android OS partners like HTC and Samsung.

What do you think of this latest ruling? Is it good to see some of Apple’s victories getting repealed in second analyses? Do you think Apple should be allowed to levy an import ban against Samsung? If they do, what can Samsung do about it?

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