Samsung
Electronics Co Ltd has urged a U.S. appeals court to stand by its denial of
Apple Inc's request to ban sales of the Galaxy Nexus smartphone while Apple
challenges its patent, according to a document filed late last week.
In
October, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal
Circuit blocked Apple's bid for a pretrial sales ban. Apple has asked all nine
active Federal Circuit judges to reconsider that decision, a process known as
"en banc" review.
The
October ruling by the Washington D.C.-based appeals court raised the bar for
potentially market crippling injunctions on product sales based on narrow
patents for phone features. The legal precedent puts Samsung in a much stronger
position by allowing its products to remain on store shelves while it fights a
global patent battle against Apple over smartphone technology.
Several
legal experts believe Apple faces long odds in trying to persuade the appeals
court to revisit its decision.
Samsung's
hot-selling Galaxy smartphones and tablets phones run on Google Inc's Android
operating system, so Apple's litigation against Samsung has been viewed as a
proxy for Apple's fight with Google. The appeals court decision involves
patented search technology which Apple argues is critical to the iPhone's
commercial success.
In its
court filing last Friday, Samsung argued that en banc review was unnecessary
because Apple did not have enough evidence to show a "causal nexus"
between its patented search capability and iPhone sales to justify a ban on
sales of the Galaxy Nexus.
The
Federal Circuit's panel ruling against Apple used "well established"
reasoning that does not conflict with U.S. Supreme Court precedent, Samsung
argued.
Representatives
for Apple and Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for comment on
Monday.
The two
companies are scheduled to go to trial in federal court in San Jose, California
in March 2014.
In a
related patent lawsuit last year, Apple scored a huge legal victory over Samsung
when a U.S. jury found Samsung had copied critical features of Apple's iPhone
and iPad and awarded Apple $1.05 billion in damages.
But U.S.
District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California -- who has presided over much
of the Apple/Samsung litigation in the United States -- in December rejected
Apple's request for permanent sales bans on several other Samsung phones.
Koh cited
the Federal Circuit panel's October opinion as a key precedent in her ruling,
which Apple said it would also appeal.
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