The Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris in France will issue its ruling on whether or not to grant Samsung’s request to block iPhone 4S sales in the country on December 8. Samsung’s request for an injunction comes as part of its legal battle with Apple over patent infringement claims related to mobile devices.
Samsung told the French Court on Thursday that the iPhone 4S infringes on its mobile patents even though Apple claims the chips it uses are already properly licensed by Qualcomm — the company that provides some of the components in question.
Samsung wants to block iPhone 4S sales in France
The likelihood that Samsung will win its preliminary injunction against Apple seems slim, according to Florian Mueller from Foss Patents.”My prediction is that the December 8 ruling by the TGI de Paris will, most likely, come down to a dismissal of Samsung’s complaint,” he said.
The reasoning behing Apple’s chances of prevailing is that its contracts with Qualcomm most likely do cover the licensing requirements necessary to avoid infringing on Samsung’s patents.
Apple and Samsung have been locked in a legal battle over patent infringement claims for several months. Both companies have alleged that the other’s mobile devices use patented technologies without proper licensing, and have filed lawsuits against each other in the U.S. and other countries.
A German court upheld an injunction blocking the sale of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in the country, and the company filed an appeal in hopes of overturning that ruling. Apple was also awarded a temporary injunction through a Dutch court blocking the sale of some Galaxy devices in the European Union, along with current temporary injunction blocking the sale of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in Australia.
Samsung has also managed to convince the court in Australia to give it access to parts of Apple’s contracts with cell service providers in the country. The judge, however, stopped short of giving Samsung access to the full contents of those contracts.
Despite its efforts to block iPhone 4S sales in Australia, Japan, France, and Italy, Samsung isn’t seeking an injunction at home in South Korea. “We concluded that we should engage in legal battles with Apple only in the global market, but not in order to gain more market share in Korea,” a Samsung executive said.