November: Australian cases heat up
Seven months after the initial stoush was launched, there was yet another meeting in the Federal Court of Australia. Samsung was forced to back down from a request for access to the full versions of Apple’s carrier agreements for Telstra, Optus and Vodafone after the US-company’s legal counsel successfully persuaded Justice Bennett that the information sought was not present in the contracts.
Samsung initially sought the documents in an effort to obtain evidence that Apple benefited from greater subsidies for the iPhone than handsets from rival manufacturers.
In a minor win for the Korean-company, the Federal Court granted its application for an early final hearing, tentatively setting the three-week hearing to take place in March 2012 (although this date would later change). Apple’s lawyer, Stephen Burley, argued there would not be enough time to sufficiently prepare the case.
Samsung also won its appeal to have the Galaxy 10.1 Tab ban overturned by the full bench of the Federal Court, encompassing Justice Foster, Justice Dowsett and Justice Yates. In its appeal, Samsung claimed Justice Bennett had made errors in her original ruling and had misunderstood and misapplied the basic requirements of an interlocutory injunction.
However, Apple’s lawyer was granted a stay from Justice Foster until 4pm, 2 December on the basis of an affidavit which contained materials detailing the potential harm to Apple and the time it would take to receive instructions from Apple in the US.
(A stay is the legal term referring to the act of suspending of a particular proceeding through the order of the court within a case.)
To the dissatisfaction of Samsung, Apple then managed to extend the stay until 9 December in an effort to gain more time to come up with a reason for opposing the sale of the tablet and drawing out the ban for as long as possible. Samsung, of course, maintained Apple had no basis for its appeals application.
Across the ocean, the battle raged on in Germany, where Samsung created a modified version of the Galaxy 10.1 Tab in an effort to dodge the earlier injunction it was slapped with by Apple.
In order to circumvent the ruling made in a Düsseldorf district court to block German sales of the original version of the 10-inch tablet in September, Samsung modified the appearance of the device to create the Galaxy Tab 10.1N, which Apple took immediate legal action on.
Changes included a new bezel and speakers on the front of the device, with Samsung confident it could demonstrate to the court its distinctiveness compared to the iPad, a Samsung spokesman said at the time.
December: Victories and losses shared
December was a case of further toing and froing for both companies.
A judge in a US district court denied Apple's request to stop the sale of four Samsung products - the Galaxy S 4G, Infuse 4G, Droid Charge, and Galaxy Tab 10.1 - in the country. The company claimed Samsung had infringed on several patents, including two iPhone design patents, an iPad design patent and a list-scrolling software patent. The full case was scheduled for July 2012.
Meanwhile, Samsung was finally given the go-ahead to launch its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia after the Australian High Court lifted the ban on the tablet and refused Apple’s expedited special leave application.
Across the sea, however, Apple notched up a win after a French court denied Samsung’s preliminary injunction request to deny Apple selling the iPhone 4S. Samsung stated it was not giving up the fight of Apple “free riding on our technology”.
Across the French border to Germany the court issued a preliminary ruling that the changes Samsung made to the Galaxy Tab 10.1 were adequate and was no longer in violation of Apple’s iPad.
January 2012: Apple advances its German cases
Apple’s new year’s resolution seemed to be win at all costs, with the company slapping Samsung with another lawsuit in Germany targeting 10 models of the Galaxy smartphone. Insisting the Samsung products mirrored its own, Apple combined its filings against the Korean giant into one case.
Two days later the district court of Mannheim, Germany, found that Apple did not infringe on Samsung’s patent with its iPhone and iPad on the “turbo encoding/decoding device and method for processing frame data according to quality-of-service”.
Despite the loss, Samsung was hedging its bets on winning some of the remaining patent lawsuits still to be decided in Germany, including two on telecommunications standards and two on the utility of mobile devices.
Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, The Hague ruled the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 could remain on sale in the country as it was sufficiently different from Apple’s tablet.
new and the victory celebrations swung to Apple in Germany, with the German court finding Apple did not infringe on a second Samsung patent with its iPhone and iPad.
To add to the confusion, the German courts ruled Samsung was not allowed to sell its original version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the country because its design too closely mirrored Apple’s registered Community Design. The ban also included the Galaxy Tab 8.9 and could not be appealed.
Samsung shrugged off the win to Apple nonchalantly, stating while it was disappointed with the decision, it was irrelevant because Samsung had altered the design of the tablet with the Galaxy Tab 10.1N.
However, Samsung was also finding itself in trouble with the European Commission, which was investigating the way the electronics giant licenses its patents. The Commission was looking at whether Samsung was breaching European competition law which prevents companies from using patents to stop competitors from selling standards-compliant products.
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