SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- A federal judge in California rejected a request from Apple Inc. to block rival Samsung from importing four products Apple claims violates its patents.
Sales of Samsung's Infuse 4G, Galaxy S 4G Droid Change and Galaxy Tab 10.1 are not significant enough to threaten Apple, ruled U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, TG Daily reported Monday.
In spite of ruling in Samsung's favor on the product ban, a trial is scheduled for July to settle the patent liability issue.
Patent expert Florian Mueller said, "if the ruling on Apple's preliminary injunction request had been the outcome of a liability trial in a regular litigation, Samsung would owe Apple very significant damages for the infringement of a valid iPhone design patent and a valid software patent."
"Apple's arguments didn't have enough merit in the eyes of the judge to result in a preliminary injunction. But the only thing between Apple and a partial win affecting all four of the accused products (but not based on all of the asserted rights) was the judge's mis-assessment of how the market works," she said.
