As both Apple and Samsung are at each others throats over patent infringement in the United States, the two tech giants are also battling it out over in Sammy’s home turf, a battle that a seems to have come to an end in South Korea with Samsung drawing some Apple blood, whilst Apple managed to draw a little Samsung blood as well.
Reuters is reporting that a Seoul court has ruled that Samsung’s flagship smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S doesn’t violate the design of the iPhone, with the judge stating that it is difficult to say that consumers would mistake the iPhone for a Galaxy S since both smartphone clearly have their company logos on the rear of the device, whilst the consumer also factors in when purchasing a phone, price, services, applications, brand and operating system.
The Seoul Central District judge stated that there are a lot of external similarities between the Samsung Galaxy S and the iPhone, like large displays and rounded corners, but those similarities have also been documented in previous products. However Samsung differentiates their products by using 3 buttons to the front, along with a differing camera design, whilst on the side the devices look different.
The judge then banned the sale of 4 Apple devices in the country including the iPhone 4 and the Apple iPad 2, and also ordered Samsung to halt the sale on 10 products including the Samsung Galaxy S2.
The ruling says that Apple infringes on 2 Samsung patents and has been told to pay Samsung 40 million won, roughly $35,400, whilst Samsung was found guilty of infringing on one patent related to a bouncing-back function used when scrolling through electronic docs, and was fined 25 million won.
Apparently the reason the compensation awarded in the case is small is because South Korea is considered a relatively small size of the market. Thus far neither Samsung or Apple has commented about the court ruling.