Apple filed an appeal in the Intellectual High Property Court in Tokyo on Monday in hopes of reversing a ruling that said Samsung isn't infringing on its media syncing patent. The Tokyo District Court at the end of August that Samsung's system for syncing media between computers and mobile devices doesn't step on Apple's patent -- a ruling that the Cupertino-based company clearly doesn't like.
Apple appeals patent ruling in Japan court
According to Apple, Samsung's system for determining which songs to sync to their smartphones and tablets is a clear knock-off. Apple relies on techniques that include checking song and video lengths to help identify them, but Samsung convinced the court that its system uses just file name and size instead.
Apple's appeal doesn't come as a surprise since the company has been working in courts around the world to hammer Samsung and the Android OS-based devices it makes.
Whether or not Samsung's win in Japan is a big thing is a point of contention. Kim Hyung Silk from Taurus Investment Securities thinks the ruling was a turning point and the patent war will now swing in Samsung's favor.
Florian Mueller from Foss Patents, however, sees this as just another ruling in an ongoing patent battle. "In one of more than 50 lawsuits these two companies filed against each other in ten countries on four continents, a ruling came down (an appealable one at any rate) according to which Samsung does not infringe on an Apple patent," he said.
Despite the Japan court ruling from last month, Apple still looks like the ongoing winner in the patent fight with Samsung. Apple was handed a sweeping win in the U.S. in August when a jury ruled that it didn't infringe on Samsung's mobile device patents, but that Samsung was willfully infringing on Apple's.
That ruling also awarded Apple over US$1 billion in damages, and could lead to sales bans on several Samsung mobile devices.
Neither company has commented on Apple's appeal.
[Thanks to equities.com for the heads up.]