The next stage of the patent war, deployed by Apple, was the ban on the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer in the United States. Previously, this device has already been removed from distribution in Germany. Apple representatives, in turn, planned to achieve restrictions throughout the European Union.
Apple began actively waging a patent war in 2010. During this period, a large batch of claims were filed against major competitors. Experts say that such actions by the company are aimed at reducing the number of sales of devices using various versions of the Google Android OS.
In 2011, Apple filed a lawsuit against the entire Galaxy Tab product line. The lawyers demanded to prohibit the sale of all products of this series in the countries of the European Union. After lengthy proceedings, it was decided to suspend the distribution of some Samsung Galaxy models in Germany.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 is not currently on sale in the US. It is important to note that this prohibition does not apply to other products in the series. This means that the updated Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 can be successfully purchased both in the US and in Germany.
Most of the claims made against Samsung boil down to the fact that the Galaxy product line is very similar to the iPhone and iPad. In this case, we are not talking about the illegal use of any patents that do not belong to the South Korean giant. Apple representatives simply believe that the Galaxy Tab devices are a "blind copy" of the iPad tablet.
An interesting fact is that the Galaxy tablet computers are the main competitors of the iPad. At the same time, the growth of sales of smartphones of the Galaxy series negatively affects the distribution of the new version of the iPhone. If Apple can win most of its patent claims in court, it will have a significant advantage in drafting cross-licensing agreements. This will allow the company to receive more royalties for the use of patented technologies.
