A Dutch court this week denied Apple's request to ban the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the Netherlands.
Apple has been fighting Samsung for months over accusations that Samsung copied the look and feel of the iPhone and iPad with its Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets.
Today's ruling comes about five months after another Dutch court imposed an EU-wide preliminary injunction against Samsung Galaxy smartphones, but declined to include the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Today's ruling, from the Gerechthof's-Gravenhage appeals court in The Hague, considered the design aspect of the Galaxy Tab patent claim, but reached a similar conclusion and sided with Samsung.
Apple is fighting design-related patent cases in several courts around the globe – from the U.S. to Germany. But determining design infringement can be a difficult task.
Patent blogger Florian Mueller said in a blog post that "the two companies need the courts in various jurisdictions to clarify where Apple's exclusive scope of protection ends and Samsung's freedom to compete begins. There's no mathematical formula based on which they could simply agree that Samsung's products are allowed to have a degree of similarity of up to (for example) 70 percent. Instead, they need guidance from judges."
Those judges tend to vary on the scope of the protection Apple has when it comes to its design patents. A U.S. court and the Dutch court, for example, said the scope was narrow whereas a German court found it to be "medium-range or broad," Mueller wrote.
Next week, a Dusseldorf court will issue a ruling that might lift a temporary ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany. Next month, another Dusseldorf hearing will also address the case against the Galaxy Tab 10.1N, a modified tablet Samsung introduced to get around the ban.
In a statement, Samsung said it was pleased with today's ruling.
"Samsung welcomes today's ruling by the court in the Hague, which affirms the August 2011 ruling that the design of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is distinctive and does not infringe Apple's intellectual property rights," the company said. "This ruling again demonstrates that Apple's products simply do not warrant the intellectual property protections that it believes."
Samsung will continue to take all appropriate measures, including legal action, to ensure continued consumer access to our innovative products," a spokesman concluded.