Jordan Sigale Quoted in Bloomberg BNA Article re Apple v. Samsung
Bloomberg BNA reported on September 18, 2015, that “Samsung must remove or replace Apple-patented features from its smartphones and tablets, according to a Sept. 17 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Apple Inc. v. Samsung Elecs. Co., Fed. Cir., 2014-1802, 9/17/15).” The court was divided in this ruling, offering three separate opinions. The majority, however, held that Apple had shown a connection between the patented feature and downstream sales, noting that the patent features were important to consumers. In a concurring view, Judge Jimmie V. Reyna “said that a patentee’s reputational harm will “certainly” occur “when customers find the patentee’s innovations appearing in a competitor’s products.””
Jordan Sigale said, “The real crux of the majority’s opinion is its holding that to prove irreparable harm the patentee need not prove in a multi-featured product that the infringing feature was the sole feature driving consumer demand for the product.”
Disputes between Apple and Samsung include two cases tried in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on different sets of patents, according to Bloomberg. “The U.S. Supreme Courot in eBay, Inc. v. MercExchange LLC, 547 U.S. 388, 78 U.S.P.Q. 2d 1577 (2006) (72 PTCJ 50, 5/19/06), chastised the appeals court for defaulting to an injunction for patent infringement, absent a “sound” reason for denying it.” In the case at hand, “[u]nderlying the three opinions is a dispute in the Federal Circuit about injunctions generally.”
Sigale put the differing views in perspective, as to how eBay addresses the circumstances of cases like this specifically. “As much as the Supreme Court made clear in eBay that injunctive relief should not automatically follow every finding of patent infringement, the Federal Circuit made clear today in Apple IV that not every infringing feature in a multi-feature product should receive an automatic pass on irreparable harm either.”
Bloomberg noted that the Federal Circuit, should it decide to take the case en banc, “may have more to resolve than what to do with injunctions on multi-featured products specifically. The court’s decision vacates the denial of a permanent injunction and remands for further proceedings.”