Apple Warns Retailers to Stop Selling Certain Samsung Devices
The patent fight between the two big tech giants have gone beyond the limits and since Apple won the patent case against Samsung Galaxy Nexus, then, Apple Samsung battle in Dutch court also went in favor of Apple and finally Apple’s request to ban Samsung Galaxy S III in US. Now, the Cupertino-based company has started sending letters to retailers and cell service providers to cease all the sales of the two infringing devices.
In a patent case between the two companies, Apple managed to win preliminary injunctions, which eventually banned the sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the United States. Since then Apple began to take aim at retailers and carriers by sending them letters to stop selling Samsung’s products. According to Samsung, several retailers received letters from Apple in the last two months. The Korean based company isn’t happy about the move. Samsung claims that Apple didn’t have the right to send those letters and said that retailers weren’t bound to follow the court orders.
Both the companies have been in a legal fight for more than a year over claims that they are violating on each other’s copy rights. The letters that are sent by Apple include the copy of the court order and warns the retailers to obey the court orders. However, Samsung said that Apple has crossed the limits and call this move as “menacing.”
“Apple may be aggressive, but its understanding of the scope is not baseless,” Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents said. “At the same time, Samsung is right when it points to previous decisions according to which someone who is not a party to a particular litigation cannot be enjoined or held in contempt ‘with respect to their independent conduct regarding the subject matter of the [underlying] case’ — but the question of how ‘independent’ Samsung’s carriers and retailers are in connection with their promotion and sale of those products is debatable.”
Until now, Apple hasn’t taken any legal action against the companies that are still selling the banned Samsung products, but that doesn’t mean the company won’t take any action in the future.
