Last week, the Apple v. Motorola case was dismissed by Judge Posner, and rather harshly. Judge Posner shut down what was left of the Apple and Motorola case, and did so with some prejudice to try and precent the case from being reopened. But, did he have to be so mean about it?
Meanwhile, Samsung is probably feeling a little salty right now as a huge ruling scheduled for this Friday was shifted to last night and it did not got their way. Join us for another week of Law & Apple and we'll sort it all out for you, OK?
Judge Posner, the most cited legal scholar of our time, is fed up with the U.S. patent system. Last Friday he dismissed, with prejudice, Apple's lawsuit with Motorola. While this was big news, it was not exactly unexpected. Judge Posner had already canceled the jury trial and hinted at dismissing the case.
At the core of his ruling, Judge Posner felt that Apple did not bring enough evidence to support its infringement claims to be entitled to an injunction or for the trial to continue. which is a perfectly reasonable judicial opinion. But Judge Posner did raise a few eyebrows with his statements condemning what he described as a "dysfunctional patent system."
Although, as Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents points out, the very idea of protecting intellectual property is to ensure the inventor has time-limited monopoly, Judge Posner would disagree. Apparently he added that it is mistaken to believe that "just because someone has a patent, he has a deep moral right to exclude everyone else."
These kids and their fancy lawsuits. I'll show 'em.
Apple lawyers, trying to salvage something from the case, proposed that Motorola be given a three-month window to modify their products around Apple's patents. Judge Posner was on to their game, though, and scoffed that Apple was just trying to create a scenario where they could reopen a lawsuit if Motorola missed the new window. Apple confirmed that it would have the right to do so, and Judge Posner replied sarcastically that "all we need is more actions, more suits, because there isn't already enough litigation worldwide between Apple and Android."
Okay, Judge. Tell us how you really feel.
Apple's lawsuit with Samsung, however, continues to pick up steam. Following up to the CACF ruling from last week, Judge Lucy Koh scheduled a preliminary injunction hearing concerning the Galaxy Tab 10.1 for this Friday.
Judge Koh has been known to take her time in issuing rulings; last September she stated that a ruling on Apple's first request for an injunction would come "shortly," and then took almost three months. Well, just to change things up, Judge Koh decided to speed things up so much that she issued a ruling before the hearing and granted the injunction last night.
Inside, I am hurting.
Judge Koh state that, "Although Samsung has a right to compete, it does not have a right to compete unfairly by flooding the market with infringing products."
For its part, Samsung remained rather stoic, hinting at an appeal and claiming that the ruling was unlikely to impact its business. Which is odd, as not being able to sell a product in a huge market like the United States usually impacts your business quite a bit.
Most likely Samsung will roll out a modified version of the device that is redesigned around the Apple claim, which at the end of the day is all Cupertino is looking for.
Adrian writes the weekly Law & Apple column and the occasional feature story for MacLife.com. Follow him on Twitter, or subscribe to him on Facebook.
