Australian Federal Court Ends Ban On Samsung Galaxy Tab Sales

New submitter Dedokta writes "The Australian Federal Court has overturned the injunction placed on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and ordered Apple to pay court costs. Apple has applied for an appeal with the Supreme Court, but Samsung is now free to sell the Galaxy Tab within Australia. Samsung is not off the hook yet, however; the full case to see if they have indeed infringed upon Apple patents is still to be heard early next year."

Comments

and ordered Apple to pay court costs

[Anonymous Coward]

good.

What the courts really need to do is charge the party bringing the suit for _all_ costs to the other party. Real money might discourage patent trolls like Apple.

Re:and ordered Apple to pay court costs

[mjwx]

Apple has money to spare. And the damage is already done. With the Christmas shopping started, early buyers would have settled on the Ipad2 instead of the Galaxy Tab as gifts. Question now is whether there enought Galaxy Tabs in stock for the rest of the Christmas season

A lot of Australians would not have even started shopping yet.

There's a psycological barrier for a lot of people, that Christmas does not start until December so a lot of people dont start Christmas shopping until December.

The smart ones (raises hand) got their Chrimbo shopping over and done with months ago, but I still have to shop for food and I hate the shops at this time of year.

Re:and ordered Apple to pay court costs

[TheTurtlesMoves]

Well perhaps not in Australia. But in Germany its the automatic fee for getting a injunction in place that is then later found to be without merit. Apple could be on the hook for a lot of "lost sales".

Re:and ordered Apple to pay court costs

[CubicleView]

Apple has money to spare. And the damage is already done

I have mixed feelings about this. Samsung got a slap in the face for sure, and this has already affected the design of their future products, so even if the court say otherwise, battle won by Apple. But I can't help but feel this was the first (or second ish) shot in a war that utltimitly Apple can't win.

Re:Good....

[quarrel]

> The supreme court is the highest court in each state

This is only sort of true (at least in NSW, but I assume elsewhere too?).

You can appeal a decision of the NSW Supreme Court to the NSW Court of Appeal. However, the Court of Appeal is a branch of the Supreme Court in the they're established.

Many corporate issues, trade practices and IR cases are also heard in State courts. It depends on the case in point .. (the NSW Dept of Fair Trading for instance, brings its cases in NSW. Many companies sue each other over contractual disputes in the state courts etc.)

--Q

Damage Done

[Anonymous Coward]

The damage has already been done though. Who's going to want to buy a Galaxy Tab when they can get something newer and probably better? Unlike Apple that releases but one new tablet every year, there are dozens of Android manufacturers constantly putting out new products that trump what was available months ago. In this kind of environment, a delay of a few months is huge. Since the initial delay, both Amazon and Barnes & Noble have released new devices for cheap that undercut almost everything else and ASUS is about to release the Transformer Prime which dominates the Galaxy Tab on the high end. Sure Samsung won, but they still lost.

Re:Damage Done

[Max Littlemore]

Possibly, but I think the one good thing that came from this for Samsung is the free publicity. Geeks all know about the Transformer Prime, but average consumers don't and probably won't find out about it for ages because Asus don't really advertise much.

Meanwhile Samsung has been all over the papers and mainstream news sites and it has been obvious to a lot of them that Apple is frightened that the Galaxy might be better than an iPad if the comments on the (very pro Apple) Fairfax news are anything to go by. The whole episode has created a bit of an anti Apple backlash and I wouldn't be surprised if it plays out to Samsung's advantage in the medium term.

Re:Supreme Court = High Court

[Max Littlemore]

Well if you get really pedantic, your all wrong because everything your posting is based on the assertion that the state and federal parliaments and the courts in Australia are legitimate. There are plenty of legal problems dating back almost 1000 years that could be used to argue that they aren't and that acts of parliament have no power over us because we are not party to any contract with them...

One relevant point is the Mabo decision which basically said, "Yeah the Crown broke its own law in occupying this continent and that makes the whole thing illegitimate, but we're going to just say that we've been established here long enough we must be legitimate... or at least legitimate enough to assert our own legitimacy".

I think the same kind of thing applies with appeals to the Privy Council. According to the letter of the law and the history, s74 is as legitimate as anything else in the artifice of the Commonwealth, but convention agrees with you that it's pretty much void.