In Moscow, the arbitration court of first instance has banned the sale of 61 models of Samsung smartphones in Russia, including the latest Samsung Galaxy Z Flip and Samsung Galaxy Fold. The decision was made due to a patent dispute and a ban on the use of the Samsung Pay payment system in the Russian Federation. The ruling has not yet entered into force, Samsung has appealed against it. Rödl & Partners lawyer Aleksey Fedoryaka, in an interview with Sekret Firmy, assessed the Korean IT giant's chances of winning the dispute.
Back in 2013, the Swiss company Squin SA filed a lawsuit against Samsung Electronics. The plaintiff demanded to prohibit the use of the Samsung Pay payment service in Russia, since it infringes the firm's rights to the invention of the Electronic Payment System, protected by a Russian patent. The author of the patent is Viktor Gulchenko from Russia.
Samsung Pay was banned in Russia in July 2021. Now the court has banned the import of devices in which this payment system is implemented. As Alexey Fedoryaka explained to Sekret, the court agreed that absolutely all technologies described in the patent were used in the decision of the Korean manufacturer. This conformity is determined by examination.
“Samsung will now try to prove that the first examination was carried out with errors. There is also a second option: the company may try to prove that the patent itself was issued to the Swiss firm illegally, and thereby cancel its effect. First, the case will be considered in Rospatent, which issued the patent, and then the decision of the department can be appealed in the court for intellectual rights, ”the lawyer said.
According to him, any technical solution applying for a patent must be new, unknown in the world at the time of filing the application. Samsung may try to prove that the technology patented by Squin SA was not new and already existed in one form or another.
“There are other grounds for challenging the grant of a patent, but I think Samsung will push for a lack of novelty. In any case, it is rather difficult to prove that the patent was issued illegally, there are not so many successful cases yet, ”Fedoryaka added.
He also noted that the Korean IT giant has another way out – to negotiate with the plaintiff by purchasing from him either a license to use the Electronic Payment System, or the patent itself.
“I think it will be very expensive. Much depends on the stage at which the parties conclude an amicable agreement. If they had reached an agreement out of court, it would have been cheaper for Samsung. But now the company actually runs the risk of losing the market, so the rates have already increased significantly, ”the lawyer explained.
In July, Apple threatened to exit the UK market over complaints from so-called patent trolls. This is the name for the people and organizations that make good faith brands pay them for the right to use certain solutions to which they often have nothing to do. Read more about this “Secret” spoke here
Photo: Kārlis Dambrāns, Flickr, CC BY 2.0
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