Ondrej Holzman Another major patent competition between Apple and Samsung is scheduled for March 31 of this year. However, the case is already slowly starting to take off, as the presiding judge Lucy Koh canceled two patent claims of Samsung, which will thus go into the courtroom weakened...
Last May, Apple submitted a request to the court to review five of its patents that were allegedly infringed by the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the Google Now voice assistant. Apple and Samsung then agreed on Koh's order that each side would drop one patent from the process in order to somewhat reduce the dimensions of the legal battle.
Even before the start of the entire process in March, the judge herself intervened, canceling the validity of one of Samsung's patents and at the same time deciding that the South Korean company was infringing another Apple patent. This means that on March 31st, Samsung will only have four patents available before the court to pull from its sleeve.
Whom she annulled synchronization patent Samsung and also said that Android devices with the Samsung logo infringe Apple's patent for method, system, and graphical interface providing word hints, in other words automatic word completion. However, this decision might not concern only Samsung, Google may also be concerned, because its Android with this function also appears in other manufacturers' products.
The current decision of Judge Lucy Koh will probably also be taken into account during their meeting by the heads of Apple and Samsung, who they are going to meet by February 19. The two sides could theoretically agree to an out-of-court settlement that would mean the planned March 31 trial wouldn't start at all, but Apple wants assurances that Samsung would no longer copy its products.
Nevertheless, Apple and Samsung will certainly meet in court on January 30, when Apple's renewed call for stopping sales of Samsung products.
