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29 February 2016Patents

Federal Circuit reverses $120m Apple verdict in Samsung battle

The latest round of the long-running smartphone patent wars has gone to Samsung after a federal appeals court reversed a $120 million ruling that previously went in Apple’s favour.

On Friday, February 26, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found that Apple’s patents covering its slide-to-unlock feature on the iPhone and its autocorrect software were obvious.

A third patent covering a “universal search” system was judged not to have been infringed by Samsung.

The judgment saw a reversal of the $119.6 million damages award handed to Apple by the US District Court for the Northern District of California in 2014.

In the same judgment, the federal circuit affirmed that a patent covering Samsung’s digital photo compressing camera system was infringed, meaning that Samsung’s $158,000 award was upheld.

Apple pointed to the commercial success of the iPhone as evidence that the patents were not obvious, but the federal circuit rejected  this stating that “a reasonable jury could therefore not find a nexus between the patented feature and the commercial success of the iPhone”.

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