Quote:A U.S. District Court has handed Apple a victory against one of its biggest competitors in the smartphone market by blocking U.S. sales of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh granted Apple a preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Nexus phone, which went on sale in the United States in mid-December.

This is the second Samsung Galaxy product blocked by Koh this week: On Tuesday, she granted Apple a preliminary injunction against U.S. sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer.

Koh granted the injunction after Apple argued that the Galaxy Nexus phone caused it irreparable harm due to long-term market-share loss and "losses of downstream sales," according to The Next Web.

Quote:Apple sued for patent protection on the following software features:

        1. A means of detecting and marking up data like a phone number or an e-mail address, and then initiating a phone call or an e-mail when the linked data is clicked
        2. A means of searching multiple databases and sources for data.
        3. A slide to unlock feature.
        4. An autocorrect-type function that completes the word as a user types and allows the user to accept or reject the word.

Reuters reports that the decision appears to have been driven by Apple's claim to the patent to search multiple sources, which Apple says is the basis of Siri. Reuters reporter Dan Levine, who was in the courtroom at the time of the ruling, tweeted that Judge Koh said "'Apple has articulated a plausible theory of irreparable harm' [because] of 'long-term loss of market share and 'losses of downstream sales.'"

(01/07/2012 02:46 AM)Senseito7 Wrote:  but software should be left alone - preferably all software patents made null and void.