Apple Inc failed to get an initial ban on sales of Samsung’s popular gadgets Galaxy Nexus mobile phone and Galaxy 10.1N from a German court.
In delivering his ruling, Presiding Judge Andreas Mueller of the Munich Regional Court, said that “Samsung has show that it is more likely than not that the patent will be revoked because of technology that was already on the market before the intellectual property had been filed for protection.”
The Munich Regional Court ruling comes just one day after a Dusseldorf Appeals Court upheld Apple’s appeal to endlessly cutoff sales of the authentic Galaxy Tab 10.1. Samsung began selling the Galaxy Tab 10.1N, a revamped version of the 10.1, in Germany to neglect the original ban.
The European Commission declared yesterday that it will check out whether Samsung broke a 1998 promise to license any standard necessary patents for phones on “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms.” The action followed lawsuit filed by Samsung last year in European courts over the patents, the EU said.
Henrik Timmann, Samsung’s lawyer hammered that the court should not be permitted to issue a ban as long as a nine month time limit for dispute for the patent has not been expired.
Judge Mueller said that “he and his two colleagues on the bench don’t follow the jurisprudence of the courts in Dusseldorf and Mannheim, which don’t typically grant emergency requests over recent patents”
Apple and Samsung have been confronting each other in a patent/design war for most of 2011. Apple says that Galaxy S smartphones and tablets violates on its iPad and iPhone designs. The company has been working intensely hard to block sales of some of the Samsung devices since the fight started last year.
Apple has more than 20 cases pending worldwide against Samsung Inc, the Munich Court ruling is still a complete set back. The ruling adequately blocks Apple’s request and could disturb future German cases involving Apple.
