Dutch appeals court upholds Apple injunction against Samsung Galaxy smartphones
Re/Code points us to the fact that Apple on Tuesday was granted a "modest" victory in its ongoing and global legal battle against Samsung. Specifically, a court in the Netherlands upheld a lower court's ruling which banned the sale of Galaxy S II and Galaxy Ace smartphones. The court found that the aforementioned products infringe upon Apple's rubber branding patent, otherwise known as inertial scrolling.
While the ruling is ostensibly good news for Apple, the products at issue highlight the ongoing challenge Apple faces in taking its battle against Samsung to the courtroom. The Galaxy S II was first released in May of 2011 while the Galaxy Ace was released in March of 2011. So while Apple has an injunction intact, the products at issue are over three years old at this point and are wholly irrelevant in today's smartphone market.
Indeed, litigating over products that are no longer popular remains a frustrating problem for Apple in the U.S. as well. Tim Cook addressed this notion himself last summer when he appeared at a Senate hearing to discuss Apple's tax practices.
"I actually think that we require much more work on IP in this country," Cook explained.
Cook specifically mentioned that traversing through the U.S. court system can often take years, which is a problem because the pace of technological advancement moves much faster.
I think the U.S. Court system is currently structured in such a way that tech companies aren't getting the intellectual property protection they need. Our cycles are fast, the court system is very long and the foreign competitors in the US can quickly take IP and use it and ship products with it and they're to the next product as well. I would love to see conversations between countries and see protections between IP globally. For us, our intellectual property is so important, I would love the system to be strengthened in order to protect it.
