Apple Blocks Samsung Galaxy Tabs Sales in Australian Court

Apple beat Samsung in an Australian court on Thursday, continuing the ban on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 from being sold Down Under.

Justice Annabelle Bennett ruled that Apple's injunction against Samsung stands because many of its features, including its touch-screen software, violate Apple's iPad patents.

Apple's lawyers said in court how seriously the company views Samsung as a rival in the Tablet market, but Samsung argued that users will be choosing between Apple's iOS and all Android-based products, not specifically Galaxy Tabs.

Samsung even went as far as arguing that it couldn't have infringed on patents because there were iPad like devices in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

We are disappointed with this ruling and Samsung will be seeking legal advice on its options, Samsung said in a statement.

We will continue to legally assert our intellectual property rights against those who violate Samsung's patents and free ride on our technology.

Samsung will delay the release of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia until further patent hearings are resolved in court.

In September, Samsung was forced to pull the Galaxy Tab from shelves in Germany when Apple won a similar injunction against the South Korean company. The court found that the Galaxy's minimalist, modern form gave the clear impression of similarity with the iPad 2, according to engadget.

The case was marred with controversy however, and Apple's lawyers filed a misleading document with the Düsseldorf court, in which a photo of the Galaxy Tab was altered to appear more like the iPad. Apple said it changed the aspect ratio of the image of the Galaxy, which was paired next to an image of the iPad, by accident, making the two devices more similar in appearance and shape.

The European version of the Galaxy tab is much narrower and longer than the iPad, Computer World in the Netherlands claimed,
yet the two products look nearly identical in shape in the court filing. Apple's lawyers apparently cropped the photo and changed its aspect ratio from 1.46 to 1.36, widening the device by 8 percent.

The new image is closer in size to iPad than it even is to real Galaxy Tab.

It also appears the Galaxy Tab was given a thicker border around its edges, making it further resemble the iPad in the side-by-side comparison.

This is a blunder. That such a 'mistake' is made in a case about design rights can scarcely be a coincidence, Arnout Groen, a lawyer with the Dutch firm Klos Morel Vos & Schaap, told Dutch magazine Webwereld.

The aspect ratio of the alleged Galaxy Tab is clearly distorted to match the iPad more closely. Inasmuch as this faux pas will have consequences for the case is of course up to the judge. But at least a reprimand by the German judge seems to be in order, he said.

The text below the image reads: The overall appearance of the two products shown above is almost identical, because the Galaxy Tab 10.1 copies all distinctive elements of equipment of the iPad 2, a claim which is greatly undermined by a more accurate rendering of the Samsung product.

In the past, Apple has gotten in trouble for exaggerating the resolution of the iPhone screen in commercials and pictures. It also made a promotional video that showed the iPad using flash video, a feature it did not have at the time.