The German Federal Patent court has ruled against Samsung and in favor of Apple in another chapter of their legendary patent wars.
Article:
http://allthingsd.com/20130412/apple-wins-invalidation-of-samsung-3g-patent-in-germany/?mod=googlenews
This particular battle concerned a technology known as "turbo encoding/decoding device and method for processing frame data according to QoS." Samsung was seeking injunction against Apple for violating this patent, which they claim is a vital part of implementing the 3G wireless standard that we learned about in class.
However, the court ruled in favor of Apple and in fact invalidated the entire patent (!). This result echoes a similar consensus reached last month by the UK's High Court of Justice, which determined that an intervening prior art invalidated the patent as well.
With yet another win, it seems that so far Apple is slowly gaining the upper hand in this patent war. Perhaps their expansive squadrons of lawyers are finally paying off.
The interesting thing I found about this article was that the court just invalidated a patent that has been granted. This means that not all patents have 100% authority if they are granted and there is small room for error even if the patent is issued and being used currently.
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