SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- A U.S. federal appeals court has reversed a California court's sales injunction against Samsung's Galaxy Nexus tablet computer.
In June during a patent lawsuit between Apple and Samsung, the California court granted Apple an injunction against Samsung that banned the sale of the Nexus in the United States.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned that preliminary injunction, saying the lower court overstepped its authority in granting it, ArsTechnica reported Thursday.
"We hold that the district court abused its discretion in determining that Apple established a sufficient causal nexus," the court ruled.
The appeal to the federal court focused one patent in the litigation, Patent 8,086,604, which deals with search interface.
"The causal nexus requirement is not satisfied simply because removing an allegedly infringing component would leave a particular feature, application, or device less valued or inoperable," the court said.
"A laptop computer, for example, will not work (or work long enough) without a battery, cooling fan, or even the screws that may hold its frame together, and its value would be accordingly depreciated should those components be removed.
"That does not mean, however, that every such component is "core" to the operation of the machine, let alone that each component is the driver of consumer demand.
"To establish a sufficiently strong causal nexus, Apple must show that consumers buy the Galaxy Nexus because it is equipped with the apparatus claimed in the '604 patent -- not because it can search in general, and not even because it has unified search," the court ruled.
