The nation’s top patent court has said that Samsung should be banned from selling some of its older phones, unless certain features are disabled, due to its infringement of Apple’s patents.

The 2-1 ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is a rebuke to US District Judge Lucy Koh, who held that Apple should be satisfied with monetary damages and didn’t deserve an injunction.

The market impact will likely be limited, since the lawsuit was filed in 2012 and covers products that came out that year, like the Galaxy S3. Furthermore, software updates to Samsung software mean that the patents may not be infringed anymore. For instance, Samsung’s Android phones no longer use a “slide to unlock” feature on the bottom of the phone.

But the judges’ decision is still an assertion of the power of the nation’s top appeals court, reminding companies that losing a patent suit can lead to the end of a feature.

The injunction that is applied today stems from the second of two big patent suits filed by Apple against Samsung. The case resulted in almost $120 million in damages, a hefty number but only 5 percent of what Apple was asking for.

Koh focused on the fact that customers bought Samsung phones for a variety of reasons, not just the infringing features. But Apple should not have had to show that its features were the “exclusive or predominant reason” people bought the phones, wrote Judge Kimberly Moore for the majority. Rather, it’s enough to show they had some impact on consumer decisions.

“The record here establishes that these features do influence consumers’ perceptions of and desire for these products,” she wrote. “The right to exclude competitors from using one’s property rights is important.”

The majority agreed with Koh that Samsung’s behavior was “indicative of copying,” seeing an internal Samsung report that shows iPhone screens and notes the “need to improve usability by providing Links for memo contents,” one of the patented features at issue.

But Koh failed to appreciate that not only did Samsung value the features, but that its carriers and users also appreciated them, wrote Moore.

Moore also says that the public interest strongly favors an injunction.

“Apple does not seek to enjoin the sale of lifesaving drugs, but to prevent Samsung from profiting from the unauthorized use of infringing features in its cellphones and tablets,” she writes.

The public won’t be deprived of Samsung phones, in any case, as the company “can effect the removal of the patented features without recalling any products.”

In dissent, US Circuit Judge Sharon Prost paints a sharply different picture from the majority. “This is not a close case,” she writes, noting that Apple’s patents cover a spelling correction feature it doesn’t use, and two others cover “minor features” out of “many thousands.”

That doesn’t come close to constituting “irreparable harm,” Prost wrote. She noted that Apple relied on consumer surveys to prove the features’ importance, and “its allegations of ‘copying’ are circumstantial evidence.”