Sometimes, reporting on the ongoing battles of the Patent War feels like reporting on actual war coverage. At least what I imagine war coverage to be like if it was completely harmless and involved tablet computers and court rulings more so than tanks and bombs and death and things like that. Regardless, Apple troops have now defeated the forces of Samsung in the European theater as a new ruling bans the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 across the European Union. The ruling was handed down by a German court, where the device was already banned and it extends that ban across the EU.
Once again, the issue is how the tablet looks pretty much exactly like an iPad.
As CNET reports, Apple’s effort to get the latest version of the tablet banned is not faring so well:
It’s a different story for Apple’s bid to seek a sales injunction against the larger, more popular Galaxy Tab 10.1N — a revised version of its predecessor, the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which was under scrutiny in several countries, including Germany, for allegedly copying the iPad‘s design.
The Dusseldorf court said today that the design changes were significant enough to differentiate the new tablet from the older version, and the original injunction that prevented the sale of the device in Germany should no longer apply.
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