Samsung Galaxy Nexus ban temporarily lifted by higher appeals court

Much to the relief of millions of Galaxy Nexus lovers, the higher appeals court has lifted the temporary injunction on Samsung Galaxy Nexus phones put into effect by the District Court. The Galaxy Nexus ban was brought into effect last Friday.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus

The federal appeals court has nullified the previous injunction banning Samsung from selling Galaxy Nexus devices and have given Apple till Thursday to fight back with an argument as to why should the ban be reinstated. If Apple can do that successfully the ban might be in effect again. So it is still not time for Samsung lovers to celebrate.

Going back to the previous months, Apple had filed an appeal requesting a temporary ban on the Galaxy Nexus as Apple believed the device had violated at least 4 different Apple patents. Last week lower district court judge Lucy Koh decided in favor of a preliminary ban. Apple has since submitted 95.6 million bond required for the ban to go into effect- it is the penalty that Apple has to pay if Samsung wins the case.

The plea to lift the ban was denied by Lucy Koh, and Samsung moved to the federal appeals court. Google in the meantime was working on a patch to sidestep the patent claims.

Yesterday though, the appeals court lifted the lower court ruling and the Galaxy Nexus is now back on Google Play store.

The case however is still on and it might be months before any final verdict is reached. The question is however, is Apple taking the easy way by suing companies for patent violation left and right rather than innovating and staying ahead in the game? The four patent violations include features as simple as Integrated search function, slide to unlock technology etc. One has to wonder whether granting patents on such features is wrong in the first place. HTC faced problems with similar patents last year.

Similar cases in England and Netherlands were laughed out of the court and same might happen here as well. If it does then it is definitely good news for the average customer and room for innovation and variation increases for the hand held device manufacturers. Also this Apple fiasco might have actually boosted sales for the Nexus as the demands have skyrocketed after the ban was in place.

The ban however is lifted for now and Google has announced that Samsung Galaxy Nexus is going to be the first device running Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean). Things are definitely looking good for the US people in this Independence month.