Apple and Samsung have played out to an unfortunate stalemate in South Korea after the country ruled both companies had infringed each other’s patents. The two are long time foes and the court ruled that Apple had infringed two Samsung patents whereas Samsung breached one of Apple’s. Each company has been forced to remove a number of products from sale in the country and it comes as the two are locked in a similar, more lucrative dispute in the U.S.A.
The main complaint by Apple was that Samsung had copied the design of their products, something the court didn’t agree with.
“There are lots of external design similarities between the iPhone and Galaxy S, such as rounded corners and large screens… but these similarities had been documented in previous products,” a judge at the Seoul Central District Court told the court, according to Reuters. “Given that it’s very limited to make big design changes in touchscreen based mobile products in general… and the defendant [Samsung] differentiated its products with three buttons in the front and adopted different designs in camera and [on the] side, the two products have a different look.”
Samsung admitted the patent they did infringe related to the “bounce back” function and told the BBC that is was one that let users know when they reached the end of a screen. Patents broken by Apple relate to telecom standards and technology relating to easy transfer and transmission of data between devices.
Devices that are included in the ban are Apple’s iPhone 3GS and 4, and iPad 1 and 2. In Samsung’s case it includes the Galaxy SI and SII in addition to the Galaxy Tab and Galaxy Tab 10.1. Apple will pat 40m won ($35k) in damages with Samsung paying just 25m won.
