Korean court rejects Samsung’s claim Apple infringed on patents

 

At this point, it’s clearly going to take something pretty radical to put an end to all of this patent nonsense. The war – which let’s face it, has already gotten out of hand – is still going on between Samsung and Apple and this latest exchange happened on Samsung’s home turf, in South Korea. Samsung was looking for some monetary compensation as well as a sales ban for what they believed to be patent infringement on a number of patents held by themselves. Things didn’t go to plan however, and Samsung once again faced defeat at the hands of Apple in court.

Not only was Samsung looking for 100 Million Won in compensation (roughly $95,000 US) but, they also wanted a sales ban on the following Apple devices: Apple iPhone 4s, Apple iPhone 5 and the Apple iPad 2. Judge Shim Woo-yong ruled on Thursday that Apple didn’t infringe on patents held by Samsung relating to short message displays and message grouping methods. Thus leaving Samsung with another – admittedly small – defeat in court, Samsung’s legal team will be pouring over the ruling before they decide to appeal (which is more than likely). A spokesperson for Apple, had this to say: ”We are glad the Korean court joined others around the world in standing up for real innovation and rejecting Samsung’s ridiculous claims.”. Meanwhile, Samsung predictably vowed to keep on fighting: ”As Apple has continued to infringe our patented mobile technologies, we will continue to take the measures necessary to protect our intellectual property rights.”

From here on, we expect the status quo to continue, with small court battles between Apple and Samsung going back and forth before anything really gets done. With the mobile technology sector such a competitive place, with lots of money on the line, it’s no wonder these companies just keep on fighting. Hopefully though, some sort of sweeping reform will come along so that the “innovation” that Apple speaks of doesn’t simply come down to who holds the most patents.