German appeals court upholds injunction against Samsung

Today, a German appeals court upheld a decision by a lower court to continue the ban of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Galaxy Tab 8.9 tablets, FOSS Patents reports.

The original injunction by the Düsseldorf Regional Court was based on a so called ‘community design’ violation (equivalent to a U.S. design patent). The current ruling might, however, turn out to be more of a loss for Apple than for Samsung, because the court’s decision is based on a law that is pretty much unique to Germany, the German unfair competition law, which can be applied very broadly to a variety of business issues.

A continued injunction based on design-related rights would have more weight and strategic value to Apple, especially after a Dutch court didn’t find Samsung in infringement of similar rights.

Florian Mueller adds:

In my opinion, the strategic value of those design-related lawsuits is relatively low. Preliminary injunctions based on such claims can have a temporary disruptive effect, but the world-spanning dispute between Apple and Samsung primarily hinges on the outcome of the parties’ technical patent infringement claims against each other. The first two patent infringement lawsuits Samsung brought against Apple in Germany have been dismissed. Decisions on Apple’s related claims will come down in the coming months.

This whole affair is starting to look ridiculous, as there are clear similarities between Samsung’s tablets and Apple’s in design and technical execution due to the nature of the product.

Personally I think Samsung needs to take a step back and come up with more original ideas. It’s not like they don’t have great designers themselves. Until they start doing that, I think Apple should call them out for blatantly copying its products, designs, icons and ads.

Source: FOSS Patents

Besides his current full-time job as a student of Sinology and Marketing at the University of Trier, Germany, Alex likes to read about technology and the businesses behind it. He also has a personal blog.