Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) Gets Unfavorable Ruling From Seoul court Over Samsung’s Case

Flagship Galaxy smartphone by Samsung Electronics Co., has many similarities with iPhone of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) but there is no violation of iPhone design by the South Korean firm, ruled out a Seoul court Friday.

Announcement of this South Korean ruling at a time while both technology giants are literally in tiff for patent issues indicates level of competition and attempts to showcase supremacy through bigger share of control in selling more than half of smartphones worldwide.

Court ruling from Seoul Friday came before expected U.S. verdicts is important. Deliberation began Wednesday in California with nine jurors looking at disputes of firms and impact globally for timely assessment keeping Google Inc's Android under control that is most used mobile software worldwide.

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A Seoul Central District Court judge explained that "although similarities in external design between iPhone and Galaxy S are much especially corners rounded and bigger screens but such things were part of earlier products so nothing is disputable.”

“Products have differences in terms of screen, buttons and et al,” a judge explained.

While explaining further about the issue, a judge stressed that it would be tough to argue that there won’t be confusion amongst consumers for iPhone and Galaxy selection but logos of companies and model designs differentiate them as notable variances in operating systems and applications. Services, price and related aspects make big difference.

The ruling instructs Samsung to stop sell of 10 products especially Galaxy S II. Four products from Apple including iPhone 4 and iPad 2 are stopped for selling.

Lawsuit was filed in April arguing Apple’s smartphone and tablets were copied by Samsung. Later party defended its stand that it was typical model developed by its team to counter market’s cutthroat competition. Apple indicated copying of its patented technology and demanded compensation.

Apple demands more than $2.5 billion in damages in the US and Samsung’s permanent ban on sell of patent-infringed items. On the other hand, Samsung argues Apple should pay $422 million for violation of many of its patents.

Apple and Samsung didn’t release instant comment upon Seoul ruling. Shares of Samsung lost 1.3 percent in Seoul market post ruling announcement. Shares of APPL are down 0.24% to $661.02 in pre-market session after falling 0.93% in the prior session.