Apple wins invalidation of Samsung 3G patent in Germany
This round of the continuing fisticuffs between Apple and Samsung goes to Apple. FOSS Patents reported yesterday that Germany's Federal Patent Court has invalidated the German part of a Samsung patent for a "turbo encoding / decoding device and method for processing frame data according to QoS."
Samsung had declared this patent essential to the UMTS 3G standard and was hoping to obtain injunctions against Apple for this and several other patents. However, the European Commission deemed Apple to be a willing licensee of the standards-essential patent and promptly decreed an antitrust ruling calling Samsung's efforts "abusive conduct." Samsung then withdrew all injunction requests based on standards-essential patents, but is still suing for damages as well as continuing punitive efforts against Apple for non-standards-essential patents.
Just last week, the same court invalidated an Apple slide-to-unlock patent and Apple has begun working on an appeal to that judgement although courts in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK have also ruled against the company.
[via Electronista]
