Request to lift ban on Samsung Galaxy Nexus denied; Google and Samsung have a fix in the works

Acting on the lawsuit filed by Apple against Samsung accusing the latter to have violated Apple’s intellectual property, last week a US court judge, Lucy Koh, had granted an injunction, banning the sales of Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the US.

Samsung, of course, filed an appeal against this ban. The same judge, however, rejected Samsung’s appeal to lift the ban on the phone which is Google’s current flagship Android device. Samsung’s appeal to lift the ban on its Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 had also been rejected by a district bench just a day before. While Apple is enjoying its second consecutive win over Samsung, many users (of both Apple and Samsung) and analysts seem to be fed up with all the fuss of suing each other. The ones who are affected the most seem to be consumers, as expected.

Apple had earlier posted a bond of $95 million, to compensate Samsung for the injunction if it is later found Samsung has not infringed on Apple’s patents, thus effectively putting the injunction in place. (You won’t be able to purchase a Galaxy Nexus in the USA as of right now.) However, Google says it and Samsung have a fix in the works which would allow the injunction to be lifted.

You see, as Locutus mentioned earlier, Judge Koh was swayed by Apple’s argument that Samsung infringed on a Siri-related patent that deals with searching multiple data sources at once. It is because of this patent that the injunction was granted. Since this is a software issue, Google and Samsung have worked together to come up with a software update that in some way avoids this infringement, thus allowing the Galaxy Nexus to be sold again. Only time will tell how quickly that patch is issued and if Judge Koh is convinced to lift the injunction as a result of the update.

Aside from this American battle, the two giants are already fighting each other in around 10 countries, as Reuters notes.

Though its a legal victory for Apple, a section of the analysts say that this action shows the “mentally retarded” face of Apple. Share your thoughts about all this mess in the comments below.

[via Reuters]

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