IP News

On Oct. 11, 2012, the Federal Circuit issued an opinion in Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., et al., No. 2012-1507, reversing Judge Lucy H. Koh's grant of preliminary injunctive relief to Apple. The appeal involved one patent, 8,086,604, directed to an apparatus that searches multiple storage locations. Slip Op. at 3. Judge Koh of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California had granted a preliminary injunction for infringement of this patent, halting sales of Samsung's Galaxy Nexus.

The Federal Circuit panel of Judges Sharon Prost, Kimberly A. Moore and Jimmie V. Reyna held that the district court abused its discretion in finding that Apple had established a causal nexus between the harm alleged and the infringing conduct. Id. at 6. The court stated: “It is not enough for the patentee to establish some insubstantial connection between the alleged harm and the infringement.” Id. at 8. Apple had presented no evidence that directly tied demand for the Galaxy Nexus to its allegedly infringing feature, and instead made its case for nexus circumstantially by basing it on the popularity of Apple's Siri application. Id. The Federal Circuit noted that this theory was flawed, and that the causal nexus test is not satisfied “simply because removing an allegedly infringing component would leave a particular feature, application, or device less valued or inoperable.” Id. at 10. “To establish a sufficiently strong causal nexus, Apple must show that consumers buy the Galaxy Nexus because it is equipped with the apparatus claimed in the '604 patent ' not because it can search in general, and not even because it has unified search.” Id.