Apple did not violate any short messaging patents from Samsung, said a court ruling in Seoul on Thursday.
In 2011, Apple filed a complaint against Samsung for infringing the appearance of its iPhone and iPad. Since then, there have been a lot of court proceedings that had happened between the two tech companies.
Samsung also filed a case against Apple and requested the court to ban the older versions of iPhone and iPad, which copied three of its mobile patents, in South Korea. However, the court handling the case in Seoul dismissed it saying that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company did not violate any patents.
According to a Reuters report, the judge at the Seoul Central District ruled out that Apple’s iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, and iPad 2 did not infringe Samsung patents on short messaging display methods and group messaging features. This decision will not grant sales ban and Samsung will not receive the compensation it was expecting for the damages which costs about $95,100 (100 million won).
Steve Park, spokesperson of Apple Korea, said in the report, “We are glad the Korean court joined others around the world in standing up for real innovation and rejecting Samsung's ridiculous claims.”
Samsung will review the court ruling carefully first before deciding to file an appeal or not.
It said in a statement, “As Apple has continued to infringe our patented mobile technologies, we will continue to take the measures necessary to protect our intellectual property rights.”
In August 2012, the same court ordered Apple to compensate Samsung $37,960 (40 million won) in damages for copying two of the latter’s wireless technology patents.
In the same ruling, Samsung was forced to pay $23,725 (25 million won) for infringing the bounce back function of Apple when scrolling reached the bottom of the items.
The two tech giants have gone to trial twice in the past couple of years in a federal court in San Jose.
