iPhone 4S vs Galaxy Nexus: Samsung Denied Injunction Against iPhone 4S in France

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This year’s competition between Apple and Samsung for customers and mobile market share has been characterized by a fierce legal patent-based battle that has been fought for months now in over e0 cases spread over ten countries in four continents.

Today’s episode unfolds in France, where the first-instance court Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris sided with Apple in a case initiated by Samsung which was seeking to ban iPhone 4S sales in the region. The court decided to let Apple continue its iPhone 4S sales and, on top of that, ordered Samsung to pay Apple the €100,000 reimbursement in legal fees.

Florian Mueller from Foss Patents points out the fact that the iPhone 4S may be home free and safe from any future sales ban following similar Samsung patent cases. Samsung is apparently trying to convince courts that Apple is in violation of various 3G patents the South Korean manufacturer owns. But the iPhone 4S uses a Qualcomm baseband chip, the one that gives the device dual-mode CDMA/GSM powers. And the chip maker already has a licensing relationship with Samsung, under ETSI rules, one that Samsung failed to contest, or prove it has expired. Simply put, other courts will probably follow the same reasoning of the French first-instance patent court, which means the iPhone 4S may not be harmed in the near future, at least not by the 3G patents Samsung is currently using as its main weapon against Apple:

The court furthermore held that Samsung’s request for an injunction was “disproportionate” and stated that this fact was apparent, without citing particular reasons for this finding. The court just made a general reference to the facts it discussed in its ruling.

FRAND licensing obligations were part of what the court discussed, but it appears that the patent exhaustion issue was so straightforward and clear to the court that there was no need to elaborate too much on Apple’s other defenses. Also, the court denied Apple’s request to hold that Samsung violated its FRAND licensing obligations simply because that kind of request for a declaratory judgment can and must be brought in a regular proceeding, not in a fast-track proceeding concerning a preliminary injunction motion. But the judge “underscores” in the bottommost paragraph on page 14 Samsung’s FRAND obligations and that a holder of standards-essential patents is not allowed to capitalize on his “necessarily dominant position” in abusive ways against competitors.

The next legal match between the two corporation will be played on Italian soil, where courts will also have to decide whether on a potential iPhone 4S ban in the country – a decision that could be similar to the one we saw today in France.

While the companies are fighting over turf in courts, the iPhone 4S is selling like hot cakes in various international markets. By comparison, with just a couple of weeks to go until Christmas, the main iPhone 4S rival made by Samsung, the Galaxy Nexus, is yet to start selling in the USA and its available in just a handful of international markets including the UK and Canada.