U.S. Judge rules Samsung infringed Apple patent

PanARMENIAN.Net - U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh on Tuesday, Jan 21, entered an order granting in part Apple's summary judgment for the upcoming Apple v. Samsung trial, finding Samsung to infringe on one patent, while invalidating another belonging to the Korean company, AppleInsider reports.

In her summary judgment, Judge Koh ruled Samsung devices in question infringe on Apple's U.S. Patent No. 8,074,172 for autocorrect functionality in iOS, while a Samsung patent covering multimedia synchronization was found invalid. As first noted by FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller, the orders relate to two Apple motions for summary judgment in an upcoming case slated to begin in March.

Judge Koh presided over the Apple v. Samsung jury trial and is currently overseeing that case's various post-trial proceedings, and will be in charge of the second California case. The jurist previously laid down ground rules for both parties, which limited each side's infringement contentions to 15 accused devices and ten asserted claims from five patents.

With Tuesday's partial granting of Apple motion for a summary judgment, Judge Koh also invalidated one of Samsung's patents-in-suit, bringing the countdown to four for the Korean tech giant. Samsung was asserting three claims from U.S. Patent No. 7,577,757, which covers synchronization of multimedia content across multiple devices, AppleInsider says.

The Galaxy device maker acquired the property in 2011. Mueller speculates Samsung obtained the patent primarily for use as a weapon against Apple in future litigation.

Mueller points out that Judge Koh's ruling is similar to pre-trial proceedings during the first Apple v. Samsung trial in the summer of 2012. At the time, Samsung was denied each of its summary judgment requests in the case, while Apple was cleared of infringing one of three Samsung patents.