Dutch court orders Europe-wide preliminary injunction barring sale of Samsung Galaxy smartphones

“The Rechtbank’s-Gravenhage (a Dutch court in the city of The Hague) today issued a formally Europe-wide preliminary injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy S, Galaxy S II and Ace smartphones — but not the Galaxy tablets — at Apple’s request,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents. “The decision follows a hearing held on August 10 and 11, 2011.”

“According to a statement quoted by the BBC, Samsung appears to be determined to modify its software in order to steer clear of the infringement identified by the court [EP 2059868 – which outlines an interface for viewing and navigating photographs on a touchscreen phone],” Mueller reports. “The decision will take effect in seven weeks, i.e., mid October. That is consistent with what the judge said at the hearing, and that date didn’t change even though the decision was handed ahead of time. The court apparently has the expectation that Samsung should be able to modify its software in the meantime in order to steer clear of infringement.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: Let the rueing flow far and wide!

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “eldernorm” for the heads up.]

24 Comments

  1. MDN you have been tricked! You have been carried away with your excitement over the recent ruling against Samsung. The Florian Mueller report is also dated August 2011

  2. Wrong year MDN 🙂

    But Apple could now do with a stronger win in Europe just to blow the common Android fan’s excuse that the last decision was about US protectionism.

    (as if the ample evidence wasn’t enough to see Samsung was copying Apple)

  3. So Apple can bar Samsung products from Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, and the Netherlands, but only because they filed the proper paperwork in these countries?

    Where Apple has no legal standing is in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Spain. I’m disappointed to read Apple’s decision to go cheap and not file the proper paperwork and pay the local patent fees to sew up all of the loose ends.

    Samsung’s European distribution hub is in the Netherlands, so they’ll do what the author suggests and move the hub to one of the countries Apple neglected to file and pay fees.

    It will be costly for Samsung, but the alternative is to do nothing. They’ll have to find another OS. Maybe HP has one laying around? If they can deploy an OS change in a timely manner, they might manage to salvage the holidays. But the OS will be limited to new sales only.

    I can’t wait for the day Samsung has to begin swapping out prior art for new. The consumer backlash will be painful for a few years.

    It should be interesting to see where the new OS will come from and how it’s developed.

  4. Regarding the court’s name: That’s Rechtbank ‘s Gravenhage. ‘s Gravenhage is the Dutch name for The Hague. Techbank = court.

    Now the big question is:

    Why is The Hague pronounced like it rhymes with “plague” (especially since the Dutch pronunciation is “sss graw venn hog uh”) while that fine Czech city Prague is pronounced like “fog?”

    I dunno and was hoping one of the intellectuals hereabouts could help out.

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