A U.S. District Court Judge in San Jose, Calif., has denied a request by Samsung to stay an order she made last week to block Samsung from selling products involved in a patent dispute with Apple.
Samsung failed again July 2 in an
attempt to stay a federal judges order that it stop selling the Samsung Galaxy
Tab 10.1 tablet and the Nexus smartphone until a patent-infringement suit
brought against it by Apple is resolved, the
San Jose Mercury News reports.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh,
sitting in San Jose, declined Samsungs request to stay her orders from last
week barring Samsung from selling the devices, which Apple claims infringe on
patents it holds for its iPhone and iPad devices. The Samsung products run
Googles Android operating system, a fierce rival to Apples products running
its iOS system.
Samsung is disappointed with the
courts decision that denied our motion to stay. We believe this ruling will
ultimately reduce the availability of superior technological features to
consumers in the United States, Samsung said in a prepared statement.
Regardless, Samsung said it will continue its efforts to appeal the District
Court ruling.
An Apple spokeswoman told the
Mercury News that the Samsung products
look remarkably like Apples: "This kind of blatant copying is wrong and,
as we've said many times before, we need to protect Apple's intellectual
property when companies steal our ideas," she said.
The trial on the merits of Apples
infringement claims is scheduled to begin July 30 in San Jose.
Suspending sales of the Galaxy Tab
10.1 and the Nexus smartphone are unlikely to have a major impact on Samsung's
earnings, given that the firm has since introduced upgraded models, the
Mercury News reported. But the trio of
rulings against Samsung is considered significant because such injunctions are
rarely granted.
Apple hasnt always gotten its way
in court. A federal judge in Chicago in June denied Apple an injunction against
Googles Motorola Mobility business to stop the sale of Motorola devices
running Android. Google recently acquired Motorola Mobility from its parent
company, Motorola, which is based in suburban Chicago.
Apples antipathy toward Samsung is
simultaneously directed at Google, whose Android OS also powers smartphones and
tablets from HTC, Motorola, LG and others. Smartphones running Android held the
highest market share, and sales grew the fastest globally in the first quarter
of 2012, according to research firm IDC. Android shipments grew by 145 percent
from the first quarter of 2011, to capture a 59 percent share of the smartphone
market, based on OS. Apple came in second, with a 23 percent share, based on an
88.7 percent increase in sales.
On the tablet front, Apples iPad is
the market leader with a 22.5 percent share, based on unit shipments of 17.2
million, in the first quarter of 2012, according to NPD DisplaySearch. The
report includes laptop computer sales as well, but NPD says 80 percent of
Apples portable PC sales were of iPads13.6 million units to be exact.
Trailing the iPad was Hewlett-Packard,
with an 11.6 percent share based on sales of 8.9 million units. HPs portable
PCs run Microsoft Windows or webOS, which runs on its short-lived TouchPad
tablets. The next three ranked selling brands run Android: Acer Group, with a 9
percent share, based on 6.9 million units; Lenovo, with a 7.7 percent share on
5.9 million units; and Dell, with a 7.3 percent share, based on 5.6 million
units.
Adding to the competitive pressure
in the market, and the legal pressure to fight patent disputes in court, is a
July 3 report from DisplaySearch, which forecasts that tablet shipments will
surpass notebook shipments by 2016.
In the Walter Isaacson book
Steve Jobs, published shortly after the Apple
co-founder Jobs death in October 2011, the author quotes Jobs as being furious
that Google was introducing the Android operating system to run on smartphones
from various handset makers.
Google, you f**king ripped off the
iPhone, wholesale ripped us off, Isaacson quoted Jobs as saying. Im willing
to go to thermonuclear war on this.
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