Australian Appeals Court Reviewing Galaxy Tab Sales Ban
Bloomberg reports that an Australian appeals court is currently hearing testimony in its review of the injunction currently preventing Samsung from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the country due to complaints from Apple of design infringement.
According to the report, judges in the appeals case appear to be somewhat skeptical of the fairness of the injunction, leading to speculation that they may lift the injunction when they rule on the case early next week.“The result looks terribly fair to Apple and not terribly fair to Samsung,” Federal Court Justice Lindsay Foster said today at a hearing in Sydney on Samsung’s appeal for the ban to be overturned.
Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett issued an injunction Oct. 13 barring the sale of the Galaxy 10.1 Tab in Australia until Apple and Samsung resolve the patent dispute at trial. Bennett failed to consider the “dire consequences” of the ban on Samsung, which has been “entirely shut out” from marketing the device, Neil Young, Samsung’s lawyer, said today.Judges also questioned whether lifting the injunction would severely harm Apple during the approximately three-month window before the full trial can take place in March.The introduction of the Galaxy tablet at 600 Australian stores would also affect sales of iPhones, Mac computers and applications because people who buy one device tend to purchase other related products, [Apple lawyer Stephen] Burley said.
“We’re talking about a period of three months and all of Apple will come tumbling down?” [Justice John] Dowsett said. That’s “very speculative,” he said.Samsung has noted that it will scrap the Galaxy Tab 10.1 launch in Australia entirely if it is not permitted to sell during the holiday shopping season, arguing that it will have missed the window to make an impact in the market. The company has also faced lawsuits and injunctions in other countries and just last week introduced a tweaked version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany in an attempt to skirt around an injunction there and satisfy complaints that the original design too closely mimicked that of the iPad.
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http://www.macrumors.com/2011/11/25/australian-appeals-court-reviewing-galaxy-tab-sales-ban/
