14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung may not like to say it, but it's been slowly losing in its patent war against Apple, the latter having won damage payments (still being questioned by Samsung though) and, time after time, getting the overseeing judge to invalidate Samsung patents, like now.
Judge Lucy Koh of the San Jose District Court has ruled that a Samsung patent infringes on an Apple one. The result? Samsung lost that patent.
The patent relates to autocomplete, or a "method, system, and graphical user interface for providing word recommendations."
Since the judge ruled against Samsung in this, it could affect Google too, and pretty much every other company that uses autocomplete.
Back in September 2013, Judge Koh asked Apple and Samsung to drop one patent each from their trial, to narrow the scope of the legal fight.
Now that Samsung has lost one to higher powers, it only has four to defend in the trial scheduled on March 31, 2014 (unless the mediation session in February succeeds).