Apple will appeal a judge's order that denied its request for a sales ban on Samsung products that were found to infringe its patents.
A jury in California decided in May that Samsung infringed three of Apple's patents and awarded the iPhone maker $119.6 million in damages.
[ Simon Phipps tells it like it is: Why software patents are evil. | Read Bill Snyder's Tech's Bottom Line blog for what the key business trends mean to you. | Cut to the key news for technology development and IT management with the InfoWorld Daily newsletter, our summary of the top tech happenings. ]
Apple had been looking for $2 billion in damages, so the award was far smaller than it had hoped, but it also asked the court to prevent Samsung from selling the infringing products, including its Galaxy S III smartphone, in the U.S.
Judge Lucy Koh of the federal district court in San Jose, California, denied that request in an order last week.
"Apple has not established that it suffered significant harm in the form of either lost sales or reputational injury," she wrote. "Moreover, Apple has not shown that it suffered any of these alleged harms because Samsung infringed Apples patents."
In other words, Apple didn't convince the court that people were buying Samsung's products because of the infringing features. The patents cover the "slide to unlock," "auto correct" and "quick links" features. That last one detects if text being typed is an email address, for example, or a date, and then takes an action like adding it to an address book or calendar.
In a brief court filing, Apple said it would appeal Koh's order to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in Washington, D.C.
Since the California jury verdict in May, Apple and Samsung have agreed to settle their legal disputes outside the U.S., which include lawsuits in nine countries. But their battles in the U.S. continue.
James Niccolai covers data centers and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow James on Twitter at @jniccolai. James's e-mail address is james_niccolai@idg.com