Samsung Electronics Co Ltd has urged a U.S. appeals court to stand by
its denial of Apple Inc's request to ban sales of the Galaxy Nexus
smartphone while Apple challenges its patent, according to a document
filed late last week.
In October, a three-judge panel of the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit blocked Apple's bid for a
pretrial sales ban. Apple has asked all nine active Federal Circuit
judges to reconsider that decision, a process known as "en banc" review.
The
October ruling by the Washington D.C.-based appeals court raised the
bar for potentially market crippling injunctions on product sales based
on narrow patents for phone features. The legal precedent puts Samsung
in a much stronger position by allowing its products to remain on store
shelves while it fights a global patent battle against Apple over
smartphone technology.
Several legal experts believe Apple faces long odds in trying to persuade the appeals court to revisit its decision.
Samsung's
hot-selling Galaxy smartphones and tablets phones run on Google Inc's
Android operating system, so Apple's litigation against Samsung has been
viewed as a proxy for Apple's fight with Google. The appeals court
decision involves patented search technology which Apple argues is
critical to the iPhone's commercial success.
In its court filing
last Friday, Samsung argued that en banc review was unnecessary because
Apple did not have enough evidence to show a "causal nexus" between its
patented search capability and iPhone sales to justify a ban on sales of
the Galaxy Nexus.
The Federal Circuit's panel ruling against
Apple used "well established" reasoning that does not conflict with U.S.
Supreme Court precedent, Samsung argued.
Representatives for Apple and Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.
The two companies are scheduled to go to trial in federal court in San Jose, California in March 2014.
In
a related patent lawsuit last year, Apple scored a huge legal victory
over Samsung when a U.S. jury found Samsung had copied critical features
of Apple's iPhone and iPad and awarded Apple $1.05 billion in damages.
But
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California who has presided
over much of the Apple/Samsung litigation in the United States in
December rejected Apple's request for permanent sales bans on several
other Samsung phones.
Koh cited the Federal Circuit panel's October opinion as a key precedent in her ruling, which Apple said it would also appeal.
The Nexus case in the Federal Circuit is Apple Inc. vs Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al, 12-1507.
© Thomson Reuters 2012