There is another twist in the battle of two tech giants – Apple versus Samsung. An Australian court has lifted its temporary sales ban against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet, landing the Korean company a win in its patent battle against Apple in that country.
Samsung has welcomed this decision with a sigh of relief because the holiday shopping season is in full swing. But the ruling does not mean it can immediately resume sales because the court granted Apple a stay on lifting the Australian sales ban until Friday afternoon. Still, Samsung will have to wait a few more days before it can begin selling the Galaxy, after Apple indicated it would appeal Wednesday’s decision to the nation’s High Court.
The battle began in April, when Apple Inc. sued Samsung in the US alleging the product design, user interface and packaging of Samsung’s Galaxy devices “slavishly copy” the iPhone and iPad. Samsung responded by filing its own lawsuits that accused Apple of patent infringement of its wireless telecommunications technology. Besides US, the patent battle between the two companies is raging in France and 30 other European countries as well as in Australia and Japan. Lawyers of both the companies have not commented so far about the latest developments.
Apple also filed a preliminary injunction request in Germany on Monday to ban sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 N, a redesigned version of 10.1″ inch galaxy tab model, whose sales are banned in the country.
This battle will go on for long and only time will tell who is the majority winner in the countries where the cases have been filed against each other.
