Federal Circuit Reverses $120 Million Apple v. Samsung Judgment

Opinion here.  This is the appeal from the judgment entered in May 2014, in which Apple asserted five patents against Samsung and Samsung counterclaimed for infringement of two of its patents (for previous discussion on this blog, see here, here, here, here, and here).  The Federal Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Dyk joined by Chief Judge Prost and Judge Reyna, reverses on liability, so it doesn't need to reach any damages questions:

With regard to Apple’s ’647 patent, we reverse the district court’s denial of Samsung’s motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) of non-infringement and find that Apple failed to prove, as a matter of law, that the accused Samsung products use an “analyzer server” as we have previously construed that term. We also reverse the district court’s denial of JMOL of invalidity of Apple’s ’721 and ’172 patents, finding that the asserted claims of both patents would have been obvious based on the prior art. We affirm the judgment of non-infringement of Apple’s ’959 and ’414 patents, affirm the judgment of infringement of Samsung’s ’449 patent, and affirm the judgment of noninfringement of Samsung’s ’239 patent. In light of these holdings, we need not address the other issues on this appeal. Accordingly, we affirm-in-part and reverse-in-part.

Just a few months ago a panel of the Federal Circuit (without addressing the merits of the underlying judgment of liability) effectively held that Judge Koh should have entered a permanent injunction (see here and here).  Presumably the injunction will now be lifted too.