The American company Apple and the South Korean Samsung are two technological giants of the modern computer industry, which until recently worked together quite mutually beneficially. Apple devices still use Samsung processors and RAM, but a black cat clearly ran between the companies. The reason was the direct competition between the two giants in the mobile device market, in which the Americans also decided to use judicial leverage.
The company, headquartered in the California city of Cupertino, is filing lawsuits in courts around the world, demanding to ban the sale of Samsung's latest generation mobile devices. Basically, Apple's claims are that the Korean company uses design elements for the case, software graphics and packaging very similar to the one used by the Cupertino-based company. According to Americans, this misleads buyers and exploits the established reputation of iPad and iPhone mobile devices, as well as violates intellectual property rights. Samsung, in turn, is filing counterclaims, and this patent war, which has already featured nearly three dozen patents, is going on with varying success.
A California court ruled in Apple's favor, imposing a ban on the sale of Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets in the country until the end of the proceedings. In a similar lawsuit filed by the Americans in a Dutch court, there were 10 points of claims, of which the judge dismissed 9, accepting only the accusation of copying the interface design. But this turned out to be quite enough to suspend sales of the new Samsung device in the Netherlands.
Colin Briss, judge of the English Supreme Court ruled that Samsung did not violate any British laws and ordered Apple to post a statement on the English version of the website. The Englishman summed up his decision in the sense that Samsung is not at all as cool as Apple, so no one is misled by its appearance, as Apple claims. Shortly after this decision, a court in Düsseldorf, Germany, confirmed that the ban on Galaxy Tab 7.7 sales, already in force in Germany, should remain in effect. Moreover, it should be extended to all 27 states of the European Union. Curiously, sales of the much more popular Galaxy Tab 10 continue in this country.
