The much anticipated Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 has been temporarily banned in Europe, thanks to a ruling by a regional court in Germany. At the moment we are not sure how/if this will affect the arrival of our stock, which had already been delayed until September. We will confirm any change in availability as soon as possible.
So why exactly has been the Tab 10.1 been banned? Well, it’s because of the on-going patent dispute between Apple and Samsung. A Dusseldorf court has granted Apple a preliminary injunction, blocking the advertisement and sale of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Europe, although this doesn’t apply to the Netherlands.
Samsung is likely to appeal the decision, although The Telegraph points out that the appeal would be heard in around 4 weeks time, and by the same judge.
Anyone likely to go and buy and iPad 2 now that they can’t get a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1? No, didn’t think so.
Via Engadget
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They probably are likely to, anyone looking at Tablets that doesn’t have a bias towards Apple or Android probably would buy a iPad2 now there is one less option out there, I think there is probably a decent amount of people that will now get a iPad2 that would have got a Galaxy Tab, sure not everyone will, but apple can sell a lot of tablets in a month. This is it is really about.
Yes no doubt Apple will sell more tablets than they would have done, but then Samsung can sue for loss of earnings if the ruling goes against Apple after appeal.
I’ve heard that the Ipad has used the samsung chips and so on. Is it true? Anyways my opinion is that Galaxy Tab is a much much better gadget… Maybe thats why its now sorta blocked)
I believe it is true that some of the components used in the iPad are manufactured by Samsung. Such a complicated situation with the various patents that different companies own and the manufacturing process.
A little curious that apparently Samsung weren’t even represented at the hearing, according to the Telegraph article. It seems like a sly move by Apple to get a tiny court to give them the European market for tablets for (at least) a month. With any luck Samsung will appeal up to a rather broader court if necessary, and they’ll be able to use “The tablet Apple tried to ban” as an advertising line.
It does sound like Apple are fighting a rearguard action between this and Amazon’s Kindle row, possibly paying the price for not significantly upgrading the ipad this year.
Yea seems strange to grant it with one side presenting no evidence.
Kindle win today with the Kindle Cloud Reader…accessible from the iPad.
Apple hasn’t lost me as a customer, because there’s no way in hell I’d have bought an Apple product anyway.
Gotta wonder what Samsung’s playing at though; the same thing happened to them in Australia and they didn’t bother defending themselves there either.
Perhaps they’re counting on winning the case in the end and suing Apple’s arse off. Or they could be trying to highlight the ludicrous state of the various international patent systems. Or both.
I don’t think it’s so much a case of not defending themselves as not being given the chance to present evidence.
It’s frustrating because Apple does make good products, I use an iMac at home, but behaviour like this does put me off buying from them again in the future.
Well in Australia it seems they didn’t bother. Ok they’re saying the ruling applies to the US variant and that’s not what they’re going to release in Oz, but I’d surprised if they get away with that technicality.
http://www.fosspatents.com/2011/08/galaxy-tab-101-down-under-apple-has.html
Yea that does sound like a bit of a weak argument. Unless they’re referring to the thicker version that was released originally, although I think that has been on sale in Australia for a while already.
At the moment we have had no message from Samsung regarding a change in availability so we are still going with the launch date of early September. We will of course let you know if there is any change.
People who like the tablets form factor and didn’t buy one yet is because one of the following:
-Apple arrogance when it comes to support.
-Dirty commercial tactics (forcing you to buy its products)
-operating system (These people want to have android )
What apple did to samsung won’t push these people to buy its products than.
The operating system is a serious problem for Apple because most people are gearing towards android as there is no strings attached to it.So because most tablets will be using Android ,Apple has to fight all manufactures of tablets based on the general descrption of the tablet form factoc it used in court with samsung or it needs to fight google for its operating system which doesn’t make sens.
APPLE IS GOING TO LOOSE SOONER OF LATER.
It looks like the Europe-wide ban may have been rescinded, just applying to Germany now…
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20092944-37/samsung-galaxy-tab-ban-lifted-in-europe/?tag=mncol;txt
Yea that’s good news! Will get that blogged later.
Did you see the article as well saying that Apple may have provided dodgy eveidence, i.e. an image showing (incorrectly) the Tab 10.1 being the same size as the iPad 2?
Yep, that was pretty funny; hopefully the Samsung lawyers will have some fun with that. It sounds like a big part of the evidence was some market research suggesting that lay-people couldn’t tell the difference between the Tab and the ipad. You have to wonder if having SAMSUNG emblazoned across the bottom isn’t a bit of a giveaway, to say nothing of the lack of a home button in the bezel. iphone 4 vs GS2 seems like a far more likely case – the home button with vanishing soft buttons, the customisation of the home screen to have 4 dock icons with the leftmost screen being home, the silvery surround… I guess they’re hitting new product rather than defending the near-obsolete.
Yea sounds like that may be the approach that Apple has taken. It’s emerged this morning that HTC has filed another lawsuit against Apple, things are really starting to heat up. No doubt the Google Motorola acquisition could change that a bit!
I’ve totally lost track of all the patent/trademark suits now; I hope the developers and engineers are busier than the lawyers!