Apple’s winning streak against Android has hit a major obstacle in a ruling passed the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The US Court has reverses the Samsung Galaxy Nexus injunction and cast doubts about whether the U.S. Patent No. 8,086,604 patent has been infringed.
According to a report from FossPatent:
The Federal Circuit’s reversal of Judge Koh’s decision has two elements. The primary basis for this reversal is that the appeals court saw an abuse of discretion in Judge Koh’s determination that Apple established a sufficient causal nexus between the alleged infringement and the irreparable harm it claimed to suffer. The appeals court agreed with Samsung that Apple had to show not only that the iPhone 4S is bought by many customers because of Siri but also that the functionality covered by the ‘604 patent truly drives sales of the Galaxy Nexus (which in turn harm Apple). If the Nexus infringed this patent but was bought by customers for different reasons, then the infringement wouldn’t be causally-connected to Apple’s potential loss of market share.
If this was the only item on which the appeals court disagrees with Judge Koh, Apple would have at least one more chance to win a Nexus injunction (or an injunction against other Samsung products based on the same patent). But the Federal Circuit additionally addressed a claim construction issue — the meaning of “each” in a particular context — and concluded that Apple is not likely to prevail on its infringement claim.
This ruling will now put pressure on Apple to drop the ‘604 unified search patent (Siri patent). This will be a major blow for Apple’s case going forward. The removal of the ‘604 patent from the Android operating system would have been a major win for Apple. It would have gone a long way in differeniating the iPhone from Androids smartphones.
Here is the part of the ruling with regards to causal nexus that will not make great reading for the legal team at Apple:
Source: FossPatent
