A US federal appeals court has sided with Samsung Electronics Corp in one aspect of its ongoing patent dispute with Apple Inc.
The Washington-based US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Thursday overturned a judge’s order blocking Samsung from selling its Galaxy Nexus smartphone pending a patent lawsuit by Apple.
Apple accuses Samsung of stealing its smartphone and tablet computer technology.
A jury last month agreed with the company and ordered Samsung to pay US$1 billion. Samsung has moved to set the judgement aside.
In its ruling on Thursday, the appeals court said Apple had failed to show that any of the patent violations it accused Samsung of in regards to the Galaxy would immediately and irreparably hurt its own smartphone sales. It said Judge Lucy Koh had abused her discretion in granting Apple a preliminary injunction earlier this year.
The decision allowed Samsung to continue selling the Galaxy Nexus.
Meanwhile, Samsung has unveiled a smaller and cheaper version of the Galaxy S III smartphone with the same screen size as the iPhone 5.
Samsung says the Galaxy S III mini features a screen measuring 4 inches diagonally, smaller than the Galaxy S III’s 4.8-inch display, but the same as Apple’s iPhone 5, which was Apple’s first upgrade of the iPhone screen size.
Samsung said the mini will be launched in Europe later this month, but it was not revealing the schedules for other countries.
Samsung’s German mobile shop lists the mini’s price at 399 euros (US$516) versus 550 euros for the cheapest S III.
The mini is powered by the latest version of Android software, but it does not support faster fourth-generation wireless networks.
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