A federal appeals court in Washington has overturned a $120 million infringement ruling, made in Apple’s favour, against Samsung. The court said that Apple’s patents on the ‘slide-to-unlock’ feature and autocorrect were invalid, and also that Samsung did not violate IP related to turning alphanumeric characters into links. The court also said that Apple may be liable for infringing one of Samsung’s patents.
The ruling was reached by a unanimous decision of three judges. It overturns a May 2014 verdict against Samsung.
Separately, Apple CEO Tim Cook has suggested at Apple’s annual general meeting that the current environment is a buyer’s market for company acquisitions. “In times when equity values are falling there’s great opportunity to [buy companies]”, he said. He added Apple has bought 19 companies in the last 15 months.
