Samsung Adds iPhone 5 to Patent Lawsuit as Tablet Sales Ban Is Lifted

Apple and Samsung continue their legal wrangling in their ongoing global patent war. As promised, Samsung has formally added the iPhone 5 to an existing lawsuit that accuses Apple of violating eight of its patents. Meanwhile a judge lifted the U.S. ban on Samsung’s Galaxy 10.1 tablet.

Speaking about the lawsuit, Samsung told Reuters, “…we have little choice but to take the steps necessary to protect our innovations and intellectual property rights.”

At nearly the same time that Samsung was formally expanding its lawsuit to include the iPhone 5, “U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, who is presiding over the litigation in California, yesterday rescinded a ban on U.S. sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 that she imposed in June,” reported Joel Rosenblatt in Bloomberg BusinessWeek. “Koh said there were no grounds for keeping the preliminary injunction in place after jurors concluded in their Aug. 24 verdict that Samsung didn’t infringe the Apple design patent that was the basis for the injunction.”

According to The Wall Street Journal’s Evan Ramstad, “The effect of her ruling is expected to be limited since the Galaxy Tab 10.1 no longer is Samsung’s latest tablet.”

Patent expert Florian Mueller wrote in his blog, “But after a hearing scheduled for December 6, Apple can still win a permanent injunction over the D’889 tablet design patent if it prevails on the related part of its Rule 50 (‘overrule-the-jury’) motion.”