Apple Wins Big Against Samsung In Court

This is the song that never ends.

Judge Lucy Koh of the Northern District of California, presiding over two separate patent cases between Apple and Samsung, yesterday issued a summary ruling against Samsung.

The ruling declared that Samsung was infringing on one of Apple’s patents involving autocomplete on a keyboard.

Namely, Apple holds the rights to showing both the word that has been typed as well as the suggested autocompletion at the same time.

Therefore, Samsung’s Android devices are infringing unless Samsung can go so far as to invalidate the patent altogether during the spring trial.

To make matters worse for Samsung, Koh also declared one of Samsung’s patents on multimedia synchronization invalid.

Both Samsung and Apple entered this two-sided legal battle with five patents each. Yet this decision from Koh, invalidating one of Samsung’s patents and giving a win to Apple before the trial even starts, puts Samsung at a huge disadvantage going into the March 31 trial.

Moreover, Apple’s win concerning the autocomplete patent could have further-reaching effects. Not only are Samsung’s Android devices infringing, but it’s wholly possible that Android Jelly Bean itself is infringing Apple’s patent, which would effectively bring Google into the fight.

Here’s the complete ruling courtesy of FOSS Patents: