Samsung Galaxy S II Tops Apple Hit List

Apple has publicly revealed the eight Samsung mobile devices it thinks should be banned in the United States, after presenting its official list to a federal judge in San Jose, California.

The list was presented 27 August to US District Judge Lucy Koh, who presided over a three-week trial that ended when jurors found that Samsung infringed on six of seven patents that were the basis for Apple’s civil suit.

American Setback

While many of the products found to have violated Apple’s patents have already been discontinued in the normal process of new-product introductions, these eight are still on the market: Galaxy S 4G, Galaxy S II that runs on AT&T, Galaxy S II that runs on T-Mobile, another Galaxy S II model not linked to a specific carrier, Galaxy S2 Epic 4G, Galaxy S Showcase, Droid Charge and Galaxy Prevail.

Spared was the newly released Galaxy S III, which was not on the market when Apple originally filed its suit against Samsung.

Koh is expected to schedule a hearing sometime next month on Apple’s motion asking her to order that these models be taken off the market. Before the trial, she imposed a preliminary injunction blocking sales in the US of the Samsung Galaxy 10.1, a tablet computer. It is likely Apple will request during the September hearing that Koh make the injunction against the Galaxy 10.1 permanent.

The infringing Samsung products all run Google’s Android mobile operating system and some legal observers have argued that the case against Samsung was something of a proxy case against Google because Apple believes that Android also infringes on Apple patents for its iOS mobile operating system.

Android Next?

In the wake of the verdict, which Samsung is expected to appeal, Google released a statement arguing that Android does not infringe on any Apple patents.

“The court of appeals will review both infringement and the validity of the patent claims. Most of these don’t relate to the core Android operating system, and several are being re-examined by the US Patent Office. The mobile industry is moving fast and all players – including newcomers – are building upon ideas that have been around for decades. We work with our partners to give consumers innovative and affordable products, and we don’t want anything to limit that,” Google stated.

The jury found that Samsung violated Apple patents by copying such features as pinch-to-zoom; tap-to-zoom; and a feature called “bounce back,” which refers to users sliding their fingers down the device screen and reaching the bottom, and the image bounces back slightly. The zoom features help a user expand the image of a page to make it easier to read type or see details in a photo.

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