As those following the ongoing battle between the smartphone giants Apple and Samsung will know, US District Judge Lucy Koh last year asked Apple’s lawyers were they “smoking crack” because they expected her to go through 75 pages of objections to witnesses. In the UK, Judge Colin Birss said that Samsung’s tablets were “not cool enough” to be confused with Apple’s because they lacked the “extreme simplicity” of the iPad.
The International Trade Commission has just ruled that the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 infringe one of Samsung’s patents for 3G services and that their import from China to the US should be banned. Naturally Apple says it plans to appeal and we will see how the battle continues.
Isabel Unwin (Ansons)