You read that right, sales of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus in the U.S. have been temporarily banned after the court granted Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Nexus in their ongoing patent lawsuit.
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Back in December you might recall that the International Trade Commission ruled that HTC was infringing upon one of Apple’s patents (#5,946,647 if you must know) and a ban was to be placed on the importation of a number of HTC devices.
The good news for HTC was that the ban wasn’t immediate and they had until April 19th to rectify the situation or face the ban on a number of their devices. Further good news is that the patent in question was for the UI behavior that pulls up a menu in response to a user selecting a recognizable numeric sequence or string of text like a phone number or email address and so it could be corrected via a software update.
Well April 19th came and went without any grave consequences, but HTC confirmed in a press release this afternoon that both the AT&T One X and Sprint EVO 4G LTE are now being held by US Customs as a result of the ITC exclusion order.
The US availability of the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed due to a standard U.S. Customs review of shipments that is required after an ITC exclusion order. We believe we are in compliance with the ruling and HTC is working closely with Customs to secure approval. The HTC One X and HTC Evo 4G LTE have been received enthusiastically by customers and we appreciate their patience as we work to get these products into their hands as soon as possible.
No word yet on whether this will delay the May 18th launch of the Evo 4G LTE on Sprint and while the AT&T One X has made it out to some users in its first week of availability the stock has already dried up online and with no new stock coming in stores will likely follow soon.
Nick Gray, our resident HTC addict, has both an AT&T One X and T-Mobile One S at the moment and verified that both still launch the dialer when selecting a phone number which would seem to be in conflict with the ITC’s ruling.
It’s unfortunate to see this great hardware from HTC held up by a seemingly trivial software detail and it seems impossible that with this ITC exclusion order hanging over their heads that HTC wouldn’t have dealt with the issue by now.
We’ll update you as we find out more.
Update: The launch of the Sprint Evo 4G LTE has been postponed with Sprint now simply indicating that it will be “coming soon.”
Samsung has been getting creative lately. As if devices with flexible displays weren’t innovating enough for 2012, Sammy has just filed for another cool new patent. The concept revolves around “smart device skins,” a technology that will extend your display to the bezel, sides and back of the device.
Virtually converting devices into displays, this technology could bring a whole new definition to customization and screen real estate. It would break multiple limitations that we currently experience. For example, one would be able to change the design of the device at will. It would also be possible to extend images to a larger size, taking advantage of all available space.
The good news is that this will not only be implemented to Samsung’s future line-up. According to the patent filing, the manufacturer also plans to sell this technology as an accessory. The product is described as a “film layer” that one can install in the device, leaving holes for important hardware (display, cameras, etc.). Much like a regular smartphone case.
This film layer will somehow be connected to the main display. We are not sure how that works exactly, but it raises one concern – battery life. This issue has been haunting Android users since the operating system’s release (not to mention other platforms). And while we do not yet know how power efficient this technology will be, it is something to keep in mind.
Regardless of how exciting the concept sounds, it may come with some downsides. We will simply have to wait until more details are released. That is, if this project ever sees the light of day; we have seen many patent filings never been carried out. Is this something you guys would even want if it did came out? Would you enjoy extending your display to the whole device?
Here is a concept video of something similar Nokia has been considering. It is taken a step further, though. Nokia displays a much more integrated extended display. Check it out and hit the comments section to share your opinions.
A Manheim regional court in Germany today launched two disputes between Samsung and Apple patents: the first on Apple ' s trial on Samsung ' s technology 3 G/UMTS, the second on Samsung ' use of s slide to unlock gesutres on its devices. The negative decision of Samsung is the third in a row in Germany, while the decision against Apple is the first of two, the second scheduled for a hearing March 16.
The Court decision comes just a few weeks after a Court in Munich decided that Motorola had indeed infringed on Apple ' patent s slide to unlock, resulting from changes being made to Motorola ' s unlock feature.
Today ' s decision is just a drop in the bucket, as it is of at least 14 disputes between Samsung and Apple pending in Germany, with more to start around the world. Samsung has already promised to call today ' decision, while Apple will probably do the same.
The back and forth between Apple and other manufacturers is by no means complete, but it is refreshing to see a judge as fed up with her as everyone is. With Apple, Samsung, Motorola and HTC all set to release some heavy devices - hit in the coming months, we ' ll be sure to keep you posted as the ravages of the war on.
Source: free software patents
