A French court blocked Samsung's efforts to stop Apple's iPhone 4S from being sold in the country. The court said that the request was "out of proportion," and ordered Samsung to pay €100,000 towards Apple's legal fees in the latest round of the global patent battle between the two companies.
The failure of Samsung's challenge in France, which rested on the assertion that Apple's latest iPhone 4S was a copy of Samsung's Galaxy smartphones, will now move to an Italian court. Samsung will be in court there next week and the case lodged in Italy is similar to what has been dismissed in France.
Florian Müller, an independent patent expert that is following the legal battles, told the Guardian that it would seem likely that the Italian court will take note of the French decision.
Müller says that Samsung has already been unsuccessful in the Netherlands in obtaining an injunction against Apple products on the basis of patent infringement. The courts ruled that the patents were in accordance with the FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) process that has been broadly adopted within the mobile industry.
The number of legal battles between Samsung and Apple has now reached over 30 in at least 12 courts in nine countries.Neither company has succeeded in obtaining the upper hand, as seen by Apple's failure earlier this month to stop four Samsung products from being sold in the United States.
For more:
- see this Reuters article
- see this Guardian article
- see this L'Expansion article (translated via Google Translate)
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