Tokyo Court Finds Samsung Guilty Of Infringing Apple ‘Rubber Banding’ Patent

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iPhone-rubber-band

A Tokyo court has today found Samsung guilty of infringing an Apple “bounce-back” or “rubber banding” patent that covers the popular scrolling feature built into its iOS platform. Apple has been using the patent against Samsung in a number of courtrooms all over the world, but back in April, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office deemed it invalid.

In earlier versions of its Galaxy smartphones, Samsung allegedly copied the feature that causes lists and other documents to bounce back when a user scrolled past its top or bottom. Apple first made the feature popular with the iPhone and it was quick to patent it, but the USPTO deemed that patent invalid back in April due to prior art.

As a result, Samsung was allowed to continue selling smartphones that used the feature in the U.S.

Despite this, the Japanese court has still found the Korean electronics giant guilty of patent infringement. We don’t yet know what the consequences of this ruling will be, but it could mean that Samsung will be ordered to pay damages to Apple, and/or stop selling certain devices in Japan.

Reuters reports that that the Tokyo court will release more details on the ruling later today.

Source: Reuters

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