The Galaxy Nexus has been removed from the Google Play store and replaced with a 'coming soon' banner, following the U.S District Court's sales ban on the devices for patent infringement, and the subsequent failure by Samsung to have that verdict overturned on Tuesday.
Google however is not going down without a fight, and is working tirelessly to find a temporary solution in the hopes of lifting the ban and getting the Nexus sales machine churning anew. They're working on a patch to directly address the issues cited in the District Court's ruling, specifically that their software violates Apple's Universal Search patent (as well as possibly 3 other patents). This patch will be rolled out to all Galaxy Nexus devices in the U.S, regardless of carrier, possibly as soon as Wednesday night, according to The Verge. The patch would limit the search feature used by the Galaxy Nexus to only general web searches, without any user specific information like location or apps being taken into account.
With that addressed, and the sales ban hopefully overturned, they plan to launch an examination into the validity of the patent itself, likely claiming that Universal Search pre-dates Apple's patent. That however may be easier said than done, with Judge Lucy Koh, who handed down the sales ban verdict and subsequent refusal to overturn that verdict, saying she sees a challenge of that patent on the grounds that it is invalid as unlikely to succeed.
Apple meanwhile has posted the $96 million bond for the ruling to become legal and go into full effect, which would explain Google's hasty removal of the Galaxy Nexus from their Play store, though they stated somewhat cryptically that it will be available again next week (apparently quite confident that their forthcoming patch will result in the overturning of the sales ban).
Is Apple going too far in their attempt to snuff out the competition through the courts? Or do they have the right to vigorously defend their patents, regardless of the actual validity of them? Tell us which side you're on in the Apple vs. Samsung/Google war.
