Apple Denied Permanent Ban on Samsung Smartphones

A U.S. judge has denied Apple's request to ban numerous Samsung's devices from sale in the U.S.

Presiding over the week-long trial between the two technology giants, judge Lucy Koh denied Apple's bid for a permanent sales injunction on 26 Samsung products. She said that any infringing features were simply part of a larger feature set, consequently meaning a sales ban would be too broad.

"The phones at issue in this case contain a broad range of features, only a small fraction of which are covered by Apple's patents," Koh said. "Though Apple does have some interest in retaining certain features as exclusive to Apple, it does not follow that entire products must be forever banned from the market because they incorporate, among their myriad features, a few narrow protected functions."

A California jury had said back in August that 26 of Samsung's mobile devices infringed on several Apple patents, which saw the latter being awarded over $1 billion in damages -- a ruling that Samsung disputed due to alleged bias from the judge.

Although infringements were found, Koh explained in her ruling that a considerable proportion of the devices in question are no longer on sale, with those that were sported other features.

"It would not be equitable to deprive consumers of Samsung's infringing phones when, as explained above, only limited features of the phones have been found to infringe any of Apple's intellectual property," she added.

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