Apple and Samsung already narrowed the field of their California-based lawsuits against each other back in May of this year, pending a July 30 trial. Late yesterday, however, both parties filed a joint statement about narrowing the complaint field further in response to Judge Lucy Koh’s request they do so.
This makes perfect sense, especially when she already restricted their court time back in June. As Florian Mueller (FOSSPatents) points out, each of the large number of intellectual property (IP) arguments is already fairly complex. Trying to argue a ton of them at once would be unmanageable.
Apple has dropped the patent argument on “multipoint touchscreen,” possibly due to it’s rather difficulty to prove in court. Apple had already dropped most of the claims from within this Patent dispute, and withdrew it with the potential reserved to assert it at a later point.
Apple also proposed the dismissal (with a “without prejudice” reassertion clause of its own) of it’s allegations against the 7 inch Galaxy Tab. It included a clarification that it was not claiming any infringement on Samsung’s F700 smartphone.
For its part, Samsung reduced the number of claims from a total of fifteen to just nine. It will assert two claims from each of its three patents, and one claim each from three other patents, says Mueller.
The narrowing process may not be done, however, as Judge Koh will assess the trial readiness of the case after today’s national holiday.
The tactics and strategy in this case are fascinating to watch. Apple seems to be on the winning side at least at this point, but a cornered Samsung could surprise us all. We’ll be sure to keep you abreast of the latest happenings as they happen.
Source: FOSSPatents
