Samsung Wins Court Order Lifting Galaxy Tab 10.1 Sales Ban

Samsung Electronics Co. (005930) won a court order rescinding a ban on U.S. sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer that’s part of a global dispute with Apple Inc. (AAPL) for dominance of the mobile device market.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, issued the order today after a federal appeals court gave her jurisdiction over the matter.

Koh had imposed the temporary sales ban in June, before a patent-infringement trial between Apple and Samsung that ended Aug. 24 with a $1.05 billion jury verdict for the iPhone and iPad maker. The jury found that Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung didn’t infringe a design patent that had been the basis for the Tab 10.1 sales ban.

“The court agrees with Samsung that the sole basis for the June 26 preliminary injunction was the court’s finding that that Samsung likely infringed” the design patent at issue in the lawsuit, Koh wrote in today’s order. “The jury has found otherwise. Thus, the sole basis for the June 26 preliminary injunction no longer exists.”

Kristin Huguet, a spokeswoman for Apple, declined to comment on the court order.

Apple, based in Cupertino, California, contended the ban should remain in place because the jury found the Galaxy Tab infringed other patents at issue in the case. Koh had refused to act because the ban was on appeal before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. She said she might permit sales if granted jurisdiction.
Permanent Ban

Apple seeks a court order permanently banning U.S. sales of the Tab 10.1 and eight Samsung smartphone models. Hearings on those requests are scheduled for December.

The world’s two biggest makers of high-end phones have accused each other of copying designs and technology for mobile devices and are fighting patent battles on four continents to retain their dominance in the $219 billion global smartphone market.

When Koh refused on July 2 to put the Tab 10.1 sales ban on hold, she wrote that the injunction “will cause Samsung minimal harm because it has other tablet products on the market.” Koh also said then that Samsung conceded an injunction on the Tab 10.1 was of little consequence because its accounted for such a small percentage of the company’s revenue.

“Their tablet sales aren’t big,” Seo Won Seok, a Seoul- based analyst at Korea Investment & Securities, said in a phone interview. “But the situation has changed now. Samsung’s trying to highlight factors that are differentiating their tablets from Apple, and the response has been good. Regardless of the outcome of this court ruling, their position in tablets will become bigger.”
Note 10.1

Samsung in August began U.S. sales of the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet, equipped with a pen -- a feature the iPad doesn’t offer. As many as 4 million units of the Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet computer may be sold in a quarter, Seo said.

“We are pleased with the court’s action today, which vindicates our position that there was no infringement of Apple’s design patent and that an injunction was not called for,” Samsung said in an e-mailed statement.

The case is Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., 11- cv-01846, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Jose).

To contact the reporters on this story: Joel Rosenblatt in San Francisco at jrosenblatt@bloomberg.net; Jun Yang in Seoul at jyang180@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net; Michael Tighe at mtighe4@bloomberg.net

Death Toll Rises in Hong Kong Harbor Ferry Collision

At least 36 revelers on a Hong Kong harbor cruise to watch a holiday fireworks display died when their boat collided with a ferry in the city’s deadliest marine accident in nearly four decades.

The boat, carrying more than 120 employees and family members of Power Assets Holdings Ltd. (6)’s Hong Kong Electric Co. unit, collided with a passenger ferry off Hong Kong’s Lamma Island about 8:20 p.m. yesterday, ahead of fireworks to mark China’s National Day.

“Five minutes after the boat departed, another vessel crashed into the middle of our boat and left without regard to the consequences,” said Yuen Sui-see HK Electric’s director of operations, in a statement posted to the company’s website. “We had originally arranged for our employees to view the fireworks. Who knew that this accident would happen?”

The death toll is the highest in a single marine accident since at least 1984, according to statistics on the website of Hong Kong’s Marine Department. It may be the highest since 1971 when a Macau-to-Hong Kong ferry called “Fat Shan” capsized during Typhoon Rose, killing 88 people, according to the Hong Kong Observatory.

The city’s Fire Services Department is continuing the search, the government said. Low visibility was making the rescue difficult, though rescuers pulled 123 people from the sinking vessel, according to an earlier government statement.
Death Toll

Twenty-eight people were pronounced dead at the scene, and eight after arrival at the city’s hospitals, the government said on its website today. Of the more than 100 passengers taken to five hospitals, nine were in serious or critical condition as of 7:45 a.m. local time.

The ferry operated by Hong Kong & Kowloon Ferry Holdings Ltd. was carrying about 100 passengers, a few of whom were lightly injured and have been released from hospital, government broadcaster RTHK said on its Chinese-language website, citing an unidentified spokesman for the company. Calls made to HK & Kowloon Ferry’s 24-hour service hotline were not immediately returned.

HK Electric’s boat left Lamma Island at 8:15 p.m. with about 120 employees and family members on board to see the fireworks, according to HK Electric’s statement. The boat had capacity to hold up to 200 people, the company said.

Leung Chun-ying, the city’s chief executive, visited an area near the accident and said the government will begin an investigation into the causes of the crash, according to an earlier statement. Calls to the Hong Kong Police public relations branch were not immediately returned.

China’s Ministry of Transport sent four rescue ships early today to assist in the search for missing passengers, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The rescue ships arrived at 4 a.m. at the accident site.

To contact the reporters on this story: Natasha Khan in Hong Kong at nkhan51@bloomberg.net; Aibing Guo in Hong Kong at aguo10@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Bruce Grant at bruceg@bloomberg.net

Dancing with the Stars: Who Scored the First 9 of This Season? (Spoiler)

With 12 celebrity contestants and their professional partners still remaining on the15th season of Dancing with the Stars All-Stars, Monday night made jive come alive – with decidedly mixed results.

Emmy-winning emcee Tom Bergeron and co-host Brooke Burke Charvet kept the suspense building until the judges rendered their scores – including the season's first 9 – while the audience audibly jeered those times that lower numbers were delivered.

SPOILER ALERT: To find out who scored high – and low – keep reading.

The show kicked off with Melissa Rycroft and Tony Dovolani's "energetic" – according to judge Len Goodman – footwork to the song "Shout," prompting judge Carrie Ann Inaba to tell them, "You were born to jive." Judge Bruno Tonioli and Len disagreed on whether or not Rycroft had some minor footwork missteps, with Bruno saying she did and Len insisting she didn’t. The duo's final score: 23.5.

Earning 26 points out of a possible 30 – including the first 9 of the season, from Carrie Ann, who said she'd never seen such lines on Dancing with the Stars – the evening top scorers were Cheetah Girl Sabrina Bryan and Louis Van Amstel. Bruno, who awarded them an 8.5, likened her to Ginger Rogers "at her best … a true dazzler." Gushed Len (also 8.5), who praised the couple's upper body control and especially the legwork: "This season, the hits just keep on coming."

Just as they did last week, Gilles Marini and Peta Murgatroyd – both displaying plenty of chest this week – scored second highest, 25.5 (8.5 from each of the judges), placing them half a point ahead of Shawn Johnson and Derek Hough, with 25 points. "Fast attack … dynamic … fabulous," Len raved about Marini and Murgatroyd, while Carrie Ann told them: "I see a little John Travolta thing happening here, and it's quite enjoyable."

Fourth highest score – 24.5 – went to crowd favorite Apolo Anton Ohno and Karina Smirnoff. "Speed, with control," judged Len, calling theirs a "gold-medal" performance. "Fast, clean and creative," determined Bruno. "You were truly driving the dance," said Carrie Ann. "And that is what wins."

Kirstie Alley's Age a Non-IssueCarrie Ann advised Kirstie Alley, 61, to stop worrying about the being the oldest contestant on the floor. (Alley told her partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy that she's lived three of opponent Shawn Johnson's lives.) "Age is just a number and you just proved that to us," said Carrie Ann. "Experience counts, and you showed it. You blended beautifully," said Bruno. And "a great improvement on last week," judged Len, who said the actress redeemed herself after her previous low-point performance. Bruno was equally encouraging. And the duo racked up a 21, with 7 points from each judge.

Also staging a comeback was PEOPLE blogger Drew Lachey, who, with partner Anna Trebunskaya, was last week's lowest scorer. "A no-fun situation," said the 98 Degrees band member.

"Watch the feet," Carrie Ann told Drew and Anna this week, as she, along with the other judges, awarded the duo 7.5, for a total of 22.5 (a one point improvement over last week). This also tied them with two other couples: Joey Fatone and PEOPLE.com blogger Kym Johnson and Emmitt Smith and Cheryl Burke.

And the evening's lowest scoring couple?

Before their Western-inspired dance to "Red-Neck Woman," Bristol Palin took pro partner Mark Ballas to a shooting range, "to show him a little of my world," she said. An underwhelmed Judge Bruno Tonioli found their routine "different" but advised the duo to work on their technique.

"You were not in hold enough," he said, a sentiment echoed by Carrie Ann. Len concurred, and the panel awarded the dancers only 18 – a drop from last week's 19.5.

After last week's elimination of Pamela Anderson, another couple will hang up their dancing shoes on Tuesday night. Tell us in the comments below: Who gets your vote to stay in the ballroom?

Scott Brown, Elizabeth Warren have illuminating stumbles in second Senate debate

LOWELL — The second ­debate between Senator Scott Brown and Democrat challenger Elizabeth Warren featured a lot of friction but not much new illumination, lacking a game-changing moment even if it was marked by two stumbles that ­illustrate lingering challenges for each candidate.

For Brown, the Republican incumbent, it came when his careful efforts to modulate his apparent dislike for Warren slipped and he asked her to stop interrupting.

“Excuse me, I’m not a student in your classroom,” he told the Harvard Law School professor.

The tartness stirred boos from Warren supporters in the crowd of some 5,700 at the ­University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Tsongas Center, a huge audience that gave Brown and Warren the aura of gladiators as they squared off on the arena floor.

It also was unlikely to wear well with viewers of their first debate on Sept. 20, many of whom remarked that Brown was too hot-headed in that encounter. Both occasions have fueled questions about Brown’s true temperament, and whether his carefully honed nice-guy, everyman image is just that, an image.

Yet Warren raised questions about her own authenticity, ­although not in response to ­another series of opening questions about her Native American heritage.

She countered them with perhaps her best explanation yet of the campaign, saying, at root, the issue is not whether she has a character flaw, as Brown has suggested. He has accused her of using unjustified claims of minority status to advance her academic career.

“You know, I think character is how you live your life,” ­Warren told moderator David Gregory, host of NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“I am the daughter of a janitor who ended up as a professor at Harvard Law School and working for the president of the United States,” she said. “I have taught school, I have taught generations of students, and I hope occasionally inspired a few of them. And I have worked hard for 30 years to make the legal system just a little bit fairer for people.”

When Gregory pressed her for regrets, Warren said: “You know, I wish I had been faster in answering the question. But the truth is the truth.”

For Warren, though, her ­authenticity as a candidate — or at the very least, her articulateness — was drawn into question when she was asked to rebut the suggestion she would be overtly partisan as a senator by naming which Republican colleagues she might be able to work with in the Senate.

She immediately named Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, even though he is leaving Congress in January after being beaten in his own party primary earlier this year. Brown and Gregory replied in unison, “He’s not going to be there.”

Warren then backpedaled, saying, “But he’s not going to be there, and that’s a problem.”

She then tried to right herself by avoiding specifics and saying, “It depends on what the subject matter is.”

That fueled Brown’s argument that in an overtly partisan political landscape that has exasperated and turned off many voters, he is a more bipartisan figure than Warren, putting aside, that is, his choice of ultra­conservative Antonin ­Scalia when asked to name his model Supreme Court Justice — a moment that again elicited boos from liberals in the audience.

Warren, he said repeatedly, would be less likely than he to cross the aisle and work with the rival party.

“With regard to working with any person on the opposite side of the aisle, she couldn’t reference one person except for someone who is retiring, a truly bipartisan gentleman, Senator Lugar. I have a history since Day One,” Brown said.

Most recent polls have shown Warren with a slight lead over Brown, not an especially good place for him given that Democrats are counting on big turnout on Election Day with President Obama on the top of the ticket.

As he did throughout the debate, Brown focused on ­Warren’s character as a means to disqualify her from taking his seat. Yet Warren did not lack ammunition to respond.

Both Gregory in his questioning, and Warren in her counterattacks, forced Brown to explain how — with the security of a full, six-year Senate term, and the Republican Senate and White House he seeks — he would retain his bipartisan character.

In two cases, his explanations strained credibility against the clear realities of party life in Washington.

First, asked if he would support Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to be majority leader in the Senate, Brown replied, “I have already let it be very clearly known to Mitch ­McConnell that I’m completely disgusted by what’s going on down there. And he has a lot of work to do to earn my vote.”

The truth, though, is that McConnell’s name will be the only one on his party’s ballot.

And when asked if he would support the economic plan rolled out by a hypothetical President Mitt Romney, Brown also tried to maintain an unlikely distance from his party’s leader. “I want to read them, see how they affect Massachusetts, our country, and our deficit, and vote,” he replied.

For Brown the Republican to win enough votes in what ­remains heavily Democratic Massachusetts, he has to convince a lot of voters he is sincere in those statements.

Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.

Romney Campaign Expands Focus Beyond the Economy

From the start, Mitt Romney’s campaign was premised on the belief that the economy’s struggles would make President Obamapolitically vulnerable. Grim economic statistics, the assumption went, would make Mr. Romney’s argument for him.

There is little evidence that the strategy is working, at least not to the degree that Mr. Romney had hoped.Polls show voters growing somewhat more optimistic, and increasingly willing to trust the president as much as they do Mr. Romney on jobs and the economy.

With the race now in the home stretch and the debates starting on Wednesday, Mr. Romney’s campaign appears to be shifting course, abandoning its hope of making the election a simple referendum on Mr. Obama’s jobs record.

Instead, Mr. Romney intends to hit the White House with a series of arguments — on energy, health care, taxes, spending and a more direct attack on Mr. Obama’s foreign policy record.

Some top aides at Mr. Romney’s campaign headquarters in Boston fear their simple message has become muddled. One suggested last week that Mr. Obama’s campaign motto, “Forward,” has been more effective — easy to understand, easy to remember and easy to say — than Mr. Romney’s “Believe in America” slogan.

But advisers say Mr. Romney is armed with a litany of arguments for his face-off with Mr. Obama in Denver this week. And in television advertisements and speeches in the days ahead, the campaign plans to frame the election as a critical choice for voters.

In one effort to move beyond the economic argument, Mr. Romney accused Mr. Obama of major foreign policy failures in an opinion article published on Monday in The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Romney said the president had allowed the nation’s influence to atrophy by “stepping away” from its allies.

“Amid this upheaval, our country seems to be at the mercy of events rather than shaping them,” Mr. Romney wrote. “We’re not moving them in a direction that protects our people or our allies. And that’s dangerous.”

The Republican campaign also hopes to seize on concerns about the nation’s growing debt amid polling that suggests Mr. Romney still retains a sizable edge over the president regarding who will rein in spending in Washington.

“Our message is very clear, which is we cannot afford four more years like the last four years, and we need a real recovery,” Ed Gillespie, a senior adviser to Mr. Romney, said after briefing reporters on Monday morning. “Whether it’s job creation, health care, energy or debt, the message is we cannot afford four more years like the last four years. We know this resonates with voters.”

Democrats have been trying all along to turn the 2012 race into a “choice” election between the policies and personalities of both candidates, so that the single focus is not the economy. And while it is too soon to know if the Republicans’ multipronged strategy will hurt Mr. Obama, the election is now being fought on the president’s preferred ground.

“They had no choice but to move on to our playing field,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. “When they go to the choice argument, they are stuck.”

When Mr. Romney announced his candidacy in the summer of 2011, his top advisers — in particular his senior strategist, Stuart Stevens — repeatedly said they believed that the country’s economic woes would keep voter attention focused squarely on the president. Mr. Romney embraced that approach from the beginning with a YouTube video announcing his candidacy in which he said, “President Obama’s policies have failed.”

Mr. Romney has seized on weak job numbers to argue that Mr. Obama has been unable to repair the economy, and on Friday the federal government will issue its report for September, including an updated unemployment estimate.

But polls suggest that the economic argument has not worked as Mr. Romney had hoped. A CNN/ORC International poll, conducted Sept. 28 to Sept. 30 and released on Monday, showed the candidates tied on the question of who would best handle the economy. Other polls indicate that voters increasingly believe the country is headed in the right direction.

After the political conventions, Mr. Romney’s campaign had planned to use a new slogan to highlight the president’s economic failures: “This isn’t what a recovery looks like.” The phrase was used a few times, but appears to have faded as the campaign has embraced a broader message.

Aides stress that Mr. Romney will continue to press the economic case against the president. But rather than focusing on Mr. Obama, they plan to stress that voters need to make a choice between two men with different visions of the world. In the briefing with reporters on Monday, aides used the word “choice” more than a dozen times.

Aides said their warnings about “another four years” will provide the campaign with an opportunity to demonstrate that Mr. Romney is the better choice and has a better plan for America when it comes to the economy, foreign policy, health care and energy.

“It’s important for us to lay out the important contrast, the important choice these voters face, on the issues they care about,” said Kevin Madden, a spokesman and senior adviser to the Republican campaign.

Michael Barbaro and Jeremy W. Peters contributed reporting.