A regional court in Dusseldorf, Germany has upheld a countrywide ban on sales of the Samsung Galaxy Tab tablet, affirming, for now, Apple’s claims that Samsung illegally copied the design of the iPad, an important victory in Apple’s wider, global intellectual property war on Samsung products.
“We are disappointed with this ruling and believe it severely limits consumer choice in Germany,” Samsung said in a statement emailed to Idea Lab.
“Samsung will actively and immediately appeal this ruling in order to ensure that consumer choice in Germany is restored,” the statement added.
The ruling comes as a blow to Samsung, which sought to overturn an earlier preliminary injunction on sales of the Galaxy Tab in Europe’s largest consumer market.
The court will now continue to review the case and decide whether to make the injunction permanent or to do away with it, which could take up to a year, according to patents blogger Florian Mueller. Whatever that final verdict is, Samsung can appeal. The South Korea-based company could get the preliminary injunction overturned sooner by a higher German regional court.
Still, it’s an especially unfortunate setback for Samsung considering that on Aug. 16, the company won a modification to the regional court’s original, Aug. 9 ruling banning sales of Galaxy Tab throughout the European Union.
The court on Aug. 16 clarified that its dominion only extended to Germany, meaning Samsung was free sell the Galaxy Tab elsewhere throughout Europe, save for The Netherlands, where Apple is pursuing a separate patent infringement case against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab and Galaxy smartphones.
(Samsung has reportedly moved forward with plans to sell the tablet in The Netherlands regardless of its ongoing dispute there with Apple. A Dutch court has also prohibited Samsung from selling its Galaxy line of smartphones throughout the EU following an Aug. 24 ruling.)
Apple’s original complaint, posted here by patents blogger Florian Mueller, cites design infringement claims against the Galaxy Tab’s thinness, glossiness and rounded edges, which Apple claims are distinctive features of the iPad according to Reuters, which as an excellent point-by-point examination of the fight between the two companies.
It remains to be seen if Samsung will try to export an interesting defense that it’s using in a U.S. patent fight with Apple: That the iPad design patents aren’t valid because a similar device appeared in Stanley Kubrick’s classic sci-fi movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
