“On August 9, 2011 the Düsseldorf Regional Court shocked the wireless world by ordering a preliminary injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 over a Community design (EU equivalent of U.S. design patent) held by Apple,” Florian Müller writes for FOSS Patents. “Apple won several other cases against Samsung in different jurisdictions over a diversity of intellectual property rights, but Apple prevailed on design-related rights in only two countries: Germany and the United States.”
“Almost to the day two years later, on August 8, 2013, the same German court tentatively plans to announce a ruling on Apple’s allegation that six Samsung smartphones (Galaxy S I, S Plus, S II, Galaxy Ace, Galaxy R, and Galaxy Wave M) and one Samsung media player (Galaxy S WiFi 4.0) constitute unlawful imitations of its iPhone and iPod products,” Müller writes. “Apple claims confusion of consumers about the origin of those products, exploitation of its reputation, and competitive harm arising from the systematic imitation of various of its products. This is not about Community designs or other registered rights. Apple’s claims in this case are based on Article 4 para. 9 of German unfair competition law. This is all about the behavior of the parties and about Apple’s rights as a market actor vis-à-vis a competitor (Samsung) as opposed to its rights as an innovator/creator.”
Müller writes, “I have information from an absolutely reliable and independent source that the court indicated to the parties at the outset of today’s trial its preliminary position that Samsung has created a derivative imitation of key characteristics of the iPhone.”
Much more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Russell” for the heads up.]
