The patent war between Apple and Samsung produced a major victory for Apple Thursday, and potentially opens a significant legal threat against Android-based devices in a variety of markets. The Federal Court of Australia issued a temporary injunction blocking Samsung from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet, thus missing the holiday season there.
Although temporary, the injunction will remain at least until the trial is completed, which is expected to be sometime next year. Since the Tab will miss the all-important holiday season, some industry observers are speculating that Samsung will skip the Australian market entirely for this product, even if it were to win the trial.
'No Coincidence'
On Friday, both companies will appear in the court to determine if a modified version of the Tab 10.1 can be sold without Apple's objections.
In a statement, Samsung said it would continue its legal fight with Apple. The company added that it was "confident" it can successfully fire back at Apple, and prove that its wireless-technology patents have been violated by the maker of the iPhone and the iPad.
Samsung is attempting to obtain a ban on Apple's new iPhone 4S in South Korea, Italy and France, as well as other markets. Apple has also won a preliminary injunction against the Tab 10.1 in Germany, based on design-related intellectual property.
In response, Apple said that "it's no coincidence that Samsung's latest products look a lot like the iPhone and the iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging."
In the Netherlands, another front in this worldwide war, Samsung has made software changes related to photo scrolling in its Galaxy smartphones in order to avoid an injunction there, which had been requested by Apple. The ban was ordered in August, and scheduled to begin this week, but now it appears the smartphones could be on sale next week. In California, a court hearing is expected between the two companies Thursday on yet another injunction.
Android 'Killer Patents'?
Florian Mueller, who writes a software patent-news blog called Foss Patents, noted that the Australian legal victory was a posthumous score for Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs. It was one of Jobs' 300 patents, on touchscreen heuristics, that was behind the injunction there.
Mueller said the relevant patents in Australia "are not tablet-specific." Rather, he said, they are "very broad and can hardly be worked around, unlike various other intellectual-property rights that Apple asserted and Samsung recently engineered around" in the Netherlands.
In fact, Mueller said, the patents are so broad that he doesn't believe any company will "be able to launch any new Android-based touchscreen product in Australia anytime soon without incurring a high risk of another interim injunction."
He said this could include any Android-based smartphone or tablet in that market and, if Apple wins the final trial, Android touchscreen mobile devices will be banned in Australia -- unless Apple settles with Google or Samsung. In addition to Samsung, Apple is also suing Motorola and HTC for comparable intellectual-property infringements.
If the validity of the Apple patents at issue in Australia is upheld in the trial, Mueller said, "those are killer patents" that Google and its Android manufacturers "must be very afraid of."
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/personaltech/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20111013/bs_nf/80591
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