Apple relaxed its stance, in the ongoing lawsuit against Samsung, after shifting the focus at the expense of a small sacrifice. Although, Samsung’s attempts at getting the suit dismissed didn’t bear fruit, the Korean based vendor did manage to ensure that a few of its devices should be excused from the clutches of a full-fledged ban. However, the exclusion applies to only those phones that are imported through unofficial importers. International versions of the Galaxy S, S II make up this list. The ban still applies to American variants of the phone and Apple is hopeful that it can earn a large licensing fee through it. At the end of the day it was a satisfactory result for both camps, but the lawsuit is clearly far from over.
Samsung may have succeeded in throwing a few international variants of their phones out of the picture, but the Korean based firm has to devise a strategy in they intend to counter the licensing accusations filed by Apple. A simple tactic that Samsung can apply is: convince the court that the allegations are invalid, by proving that the technology was developed prior to date when the patent was filed. Today’s examples seemed more grounded in reality. For example, Samsung was focussed on debunking Apple’s claim to the “bounce back” effect that happens when the user reaches the end of a page through navigation gestures. Samsung justified that this concept featured in an old pocket PC interface called LaunchTile, which allowed users to zoom in and out across several applications and also pan across a grid like view of different applications.
Apple on the other hand was clever in its reply, stating that Launch Tile didn’t have a gesture for diagonal navigation among other differences. However, Samsung wouldn’t budge as they brought out DiamondTouch, a projection based touch table, that can work with pinch based gestures and one touch scrolling. The table also makes use of TableCloth which uses the aforementioned bounce-back technology. The creator of this technology told the court that this application was available to anyone who visited Mitsubishi electronic research laboratory. So the judgement now is based solely on the jury’s understanding. If they find Samsung’s claims justified, this severely deter Apple’s chances of a victory. However, Apple and its lawyers haven’t called the quits just yet as the battle for the top place among consumers narrows even further.
