Samsung has lost its opportunity to convince U.S. courts to block Apple from moving forward with a motion to block sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet when the Court of Appeals said it wouldn’t rehear the case. The decision means Apple is open to move for a preliminary injunction blocking the import and sale of the Galaxy Tab over claims that the tablet infringes on Apple-owned mobile device patents.
Samsung had also hoped to show the court its plans to work around Apple’s patents on Tuesday with a motion for what it called clarification, but was stopped by Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal. The electronics maker was pushing to detail its planned workarounds for Apple’s overscroll bounce patent, tap to zoom and navigate patent, and timed window patent.
Samsung loses bid to stop Apple from moving forward with a Galaxy Tab 10.1 injunction
The Judge had blocked Samsung in early May from offering any evidence at trial for its patent workaround plans after the company failed to produce related source code to Apple before the end of 2011.
“This is a relatively tough sanction because it means that Samsung has to accept liability at trial time for infringements that may already have stopped,” commented Florian Mueller of Foss Patents. “For example, Samsung may have to pay damages for products that never infringed, or for periods during which previously-infringing products were no longer infringing.”
Samsung’s legal team argued that it had, in fact, handed over of the required code before the deadline, but Judge Grewal said “Samsung failed miserably in meeting its obligation to produce all design-around code for all of the accused products by the December 22 Order’s deadline.”
Apple and Samsung have been fighting on court for more than a year over patent infringement allegations related to their mobile devices.
Samsung won a small victory in the Netherlands on Wednesday when The Hague ruled the iPhone 4 and earlier, along with the iPad 2, infringe on a Samsung-owned 3G patent. In that case, however, Samsung can’t seek an injunction blocking the import and sale of Apple’s products, and probably won’t even recoupe its legal expenses.
Back in the U.S., however, Samsung’s legal tactics seem to have gone worse, leaving the company open to a potential import ban on its iPad competitor — the Galaxy Tab 10.1 — and it’s a safe bet that’s exactly what Apple will be gunning for.