sloth unleashed

Judge Lucy Koh of California’s Northern District Court ruled today in favor of granting Apple an injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus phone. The injunction would seek to stop the import of Samsung’s phone, which Apple alleged had infringed on four of its patents.

Apple sued for patent protection on the following software features:

1. A means of detecting and marking up data like a phone number or an e-mail address, and then initiating a phone call or an e-mail when the linked data is clicked

2. A means of searching multiple databases and sources for data.

3. A slide to unlock feature.

4. An autocorrect-type function that completes the word as a user types and allows the user to accept or reject the word.

Reuters reports that the decision appears to have been driven by Apple’s claim to the patent to search multiple sources, which Apple says is the basis of Siri. Reuters reporter Dan Levine, who was in the courtroom at the time of the ruling, tweeted that Judge Koh said “‘Apple has articulated a plausible theory of irreparable harm’ [because] of ‘long-term loss of market share and ‘losses of downstream sales.’”

The Galaxy Nexus is Google’s flagship device, and while the ruling will not have a direct impact on the import of Google’s recently announced Nexus 7 tablet, the ruling is surely a blow to Google during its IO 2012 conference.

=:O