Federal Circuit revives Apple’s injunction request in Samsung row
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled that a US district court was wrong to deny Apple’s request for an injunction in its $119 million patent dispute with Samsung.
On Thursday, September 17, in a 2-1 decision, a divided federal circuit decided that the US District Court for the Northern District of California should have granted Apple’s request for an injunction after Samsung was found to have infringed three of its patents.
Judge Kimberly Moore, who wrote the majority opinion, said: “Apple has satisfied the causal nexus of requirement and therefore established irreparable harm ... moreover as the district court found, the balance of hardships and public interest weigh strongly in favour of an injunction.
“Given this, the district court abused its discretion when it did not enjoin Samsung’s infringement.”
The dispute concerns three patents—5,946,647; 8,046,721; and 8,074,172—owned by Apple. The ‘647 patent covers a method of creating links within the data structures of a phone while the ‘721 and ‘172 patents cover the slide to unlock method on the home screen and a spellchecker respectively.
In 2012, Apple sued Samsung accusing it of infringing the patents. After the California district court awarded $119 million in damages to Apple last year, the company asked for a permanent injunction to be applied.
Apple’s request, however, did not seek to enjoin Samsung’s smartphones and tablets as a whole, but instead “only the infringing features”.
The request also included a 30-day “sunset period” during which Samsung was given time to remove the infringing features.
In support of its argument, Apple presented survey evidence which showed that US consumers would not have bought the infringing products if they lacked the patented features.
Furthermore, the survey evidence had shown consumers were willing to pay more for products that contained the infringing features.
The district court denied the request. But Moore said the decision was “predicated on an incorrect understanding of the nature of the causal nexus requirement”.
Moore added that “while this evidence of irreparable harm is not as strong as proof that customers buy the infringing products only because of these particular features, it is still evidence of causal nexus for lost sales and irreparable harm”.
But Chief Judge Sharon Prost was not convinced by Moore’s argument.
In a dissenting opinion, she described the processes covered by the ‘721 and ‘647 patents as “minor features”.
Apple, she added, does not even use the spellchecker covered by patent ‘172.
She wrote: “The majority finds legal error by the district court where none exists ... the majority reverses without deference the district court’s rejection of Apple’s survey evidence, never mentioning that the survey was rejected by the district court because Samsung’s serious challenges to its techniques and conclusions were unrebutted by Apple.
“Because the majority here reaches a result that comports with neither existing law nor the record in this case, I must respectfully dissent,” she added.
The case has been remanded back to the district court.
A spokesperson for Samsung said: "We agree with Chief Judge Prost's dissent that Apple's request for an injunction is unfounded. We will pursue our rights to have the full court of appeal review today's decision.
"We want to reassure our millions of loyal customers that all of our flagship smartphones, which are wanted and loved by American consumers, will remain on sale and available for customer service support in the US," she added.
