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Apple Seeks Ban on Samsung Galaxy S III

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In a move that should surprise nobody, Apple is seeking a ban on the Samsung Galaxy S III.

According to FOSS Patents, Apple moved to add the Galaxy S III to its request for a preliminary U.S. ban on the Galaxy Nexus. Apple cites two patents in its complaint against the Galaxy S III. The first patent is the “data tapping” patent that Apple is also using against 29 HTC devices. The second patent has to do with unified search.

The unified search patent covers Apple’s Siri, which Samsung’s S Voice seems to shamelessly clone. S Voice has functionality that’s very close to Siri and the UI looks a lot like Apple’s virtual personal assistant. Samsung’s S Voice uses more color in the speech bubbles and a more oblong microphone icon, but the similarity is hard to deny.

In its complaint Apple cites reports that Samsung already sold more than nine million pre-orders for the Galaxy S III and claims that it is “the most extensively preordered piece of consumer electronics in history.” Those reports aren’t confirmed, but Apple can claim damage and loss of sales in court because of them.

The court hearing for the Galaxy Nexus complaint is already scheduled for tomorrow, June 7. The court will likely discuss the Galaxy S III during the hearing.

As part of the complaint, Apple asked Samsung to “confirm that it will not launch the Galaxy S III in the United States until the Court has ruled on Apple’s preliminary injunction motion.”

Samsung’s counsel responded by saying “Apple’s pending Preliminary Injunction Motion will have no bearing on the release date of the Galaxy S III.”

Sounds like there’s a possibility Samsung might running into problems similar to the ones HTC ran into when the One X and EVO 4G LTE were held up in Customs. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow to hear what Judge Koh has to say about the matter.

Samsung later responded saying “If Apple wishes to seek an injunction against the Galaxy S III, the Court should require Apple to file a new motion and allow the parties to develop a full factual record on all four factors. Accordingly, the Court should reject Apple’s motion to amend its current notice of motion for a preliminary injunction.”

To us, it sounds like Samsung might want a bit more time. If Apple files a new motion it will take some time to get a court hearing which will likely come after the Galaxy S III launches in the U.S.

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Brian R

    06/06/2012 at 2:10 pm

    Hasn’t android had unified search for quite some time via the google searchbox? The google searchbox existed long before Siri. We could go back even further to the google desktop search if anyone wants to argue.

  2. Chumpy

    06/06/2012 at 2:49 pm

    How retared can Apple be

  3. ausnote

    06/07/2012 at 6:21 pm

    BOYCOTT rotten apple. They are like patent troll if not for a couple of crappy children’s toys.

    Prediction: iphone 5 will flop and their shares will more than half in value. How gullible are people owing shares in apple when they paid no dividend. GET OUT ASAP

  4. Stan S.

    06/09/2012 at 2:59 am

    It is possible that during a patent process which may take months to years to actually grant a patent, that other companies bring out similar ip and designs so that they actually have a product on the market prior to “Apple” or other companies actually having a valid patent. However once granted all the devices are subject to it.
    IMHO all the patent stuff is more about money than anything else, but the asking prices for the royalties are through the roof and insane. Imagine if IBM had charged $5 for CTL-ATL-DEL (which I consider ‘equivalent’ to ‘slide to unlock’). MS charged $50 for Windows 3.1 (an entire OS) in OS/2, how are the 3 old IP patents they are trolling to Android OEMs worth up to $15?

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