In an amusing reversal of fates, Apple is facing problems at the hands of
Samsung in South Korea
that are quite
similar to the ones they’ve inflicted upon Samsung in
the United States. After Apple has handed injunctions to Samsung that prevent
the sale of a few of their devices, including the Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy Tab 10.1, Samsung has returned the favour by getting injunctions against the
iPad and
iPhone in South Korea. It looks like Apple isn’t quite doomed in South Korea yet, though.
A report from
Bloomberg today informs us that Apple has been granted a delay on the injunction until their appeal process can be completed. Until that appeal trial can happen, Apple will be allowed to continue selling iPads and iPhone, and only if they lose that appeal will the devices be banned from sale in South Korea. Yes, this is happening on the same day that an American court
overturned the injunction against the Galaxy Nexus that Apple has been pushing.
The world is weird sometimes.
The most intriguing part of this whole Apple vs. Samsung affair has been seeing how much the different countries’ judicial systems bat for their home teams. In the United States, Apple - an American company – won a massive victory over Samsung that would have the Korean company paying them over $1 billion. At the same time, South Korea is seriously considering banning the iPhone and iPad from sale because of alleged patent infringements against Samsung – a South Korean company.
The courts of neutral third-party nations like
the UK and
Germany have ruled mostly in favour of Samsung, though Apple has also scored some international victories.
The fact that patent law is so open to wildly different interpretations like this might
be the best evidence we’ve
seen of just how broken beyond repair the current patent system is, in both the United States and other places that have modeled their systems off the American one.
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