Samsung Gains Leverage With South Korea Patent Decision

The Wall Street Journal: As a jury deliberates in the U.S. Apple v. Samsung patent case, a South Korean court has issued a verdict in a related trial. The South Koreans found that Samsung products infringed on one Apple patent and Apple products infringed on two Samsung patents. Each company received a small monetary award, and the court banned sales of all the offending products. However, the court said that Samsung’s products do not copy Apple’s designs and that Samsung did not copy Apple’s icons. The court also stated that there was “no possibility” that customers would confuse Samsung’s phones and tablets for Apple’s.

Although Apple and Samsung have sued each other in many international courts, the South Korean court was the first to rule that Samsung’s industry-standard patents could be considered in cases related to non-standards patents.