German Appeals Court Confirms Galaxy Tab 10.1 Ban

New submitter Killer Panda sends word that a German Appeals Court has upheld the injunction prohibiting sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany. Apple convinced lower courts to issue and uphold the injunction last year by making the case that Samsung's devices "slavishly" copied the iPhone and iPad. "Samsung, which is Apple's supplier as well as a competitor, has been trying to have the German decision overturned while also seeking other means to fight Apple. It redesigned the Galaxy Tab 10.1 for the German market only and named it Galaxy Tab 10.1N to get around the sales ban. Apple challenged the reworked version but a German court last month rejected Apple's claims in a preliminary judgment." The European Union announced some more bad news for Samsung: they'll be investigating the company to see whether its use of patent lawsuits is illegally hindering other companies' use of standardized 3G technology. "Under EU patent rules, a company that holds patents for standardized products is required to license them out indiscriminately at a fair price."

I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

[blind biker]

Granted, I only read TFS, but to my defense, I got so disgusted that all energy left my body in an instant.

Galaxy Tab = better than IPad 2

[dryriver]

Galaxy Tab 10.1 is slimmer, lighter, has a higher res camera, a better screen and longer battery life than IPad 2. Oh, its also cheaper, and unlike iPad 2, can be bought "as is", without being tied to a mandatory 12/24 month dataplan, as is the case with iPad 2 where I live. I don't think Galaxy Tab is a shameless copy of iPad 2. I think that it is a significantly BETTER product that happens to look somewhat similar to iPad 2 (then again, all tablet computers look a lot like each other). Apple is suing because Samsung has produced a superior Tablet Computer. And some crappy court in Germany has decided to uphold this stupid claim. Galaxy Tab is the better tablet of the two, and Apple - being its typical agressive, domineering self - is suing to keep Korean Samsung's superior product out of people's hands, so they have have to go and buy an iPad 2 instead.

But they do...

[MrCrassic]

A few days ago, I was in Best Buy looking for a new external hard drive. While I was trying to get over the insane price markups, a very svelte-looking laptop caught the corner of my eye. It was one of Samsung's newest [notebookcheck.net] models [notebookcheck.net], and it was beautiful. Maybe a little too beautiful, as it reminded me up, down and center of the MacBook Pro it was obviously trying to compete with.

Anyone that has good working vision can see that Samsung, more or less, copies Apple's designs wholesale. They might not be complete replicas of their products, but the "nods" they include in their designs are pretty obvious. Not a bad thing when you consider the technological advancements they provide with their clone-killers, but not surprising when Apple throws down the legal gauntlet as a response.

Re:But they do...

[Solandri]

Anyone that has good working vision can see that Samsung, more or less, copies Apple's designs wholesale. They might not be complete replicas of their products, but the "nods" they include in their designs are pretty obvious.

Take a look at this Samsung product [engadget.com]. Obviously a rip-off of the iPad, right? Except Samsung released it in 2006, four years before the iPad.

There are certain basic concepts which recur over and over in product designs. Black looks good, certain things look better flat rather than curved, make the flat thing shiny for bonus points, a border around the main area of focus (screen/photo) helps isolate it from the background, a chrome/metal trim along the edge makes a good highlight. The only thing that's changed is that suddenly Apple is claiming that they own these basic age-old design concepts and nobody else is allowed to use them in certain types of new products.

Re:But they do...

[Solandri]

Show a picture of the side or rear of the device and it ceases to look anything like an iPad.

That's the rear of a different Samsung digital picture frame. I wasn't able to find pictures of the rear of the 2006 model, but here's the rear of the 2008 version (in white) [engadget.com]. As you can see, aside from the stand poking out the back, the relative thickness, and radius of the curvature, it looks very much like the original iPad.

Anyhow, the point wasn't that Samsung had released an iPad before the iPad. The point was that the design elements Apple is claiming ownership of in tablet-space were widely used long before the iPad existed.