U.S. judge issues injunction on Samsung Galaxy Tab sales | Hacker News Reader

U.S. judge issues injunction on Samsung Galaxy Tab sales

reuters.com

13 pointsrmah10 comments

More detail and full ruling: http://allthingsd.com/20120626/apple-wins-injunction-against...

This is still breaking... I will add details as they are released.

The linked article has been expanded by Reuters. Color me mildly impressed they'd do that.

The 10.1 came out almost a year ago. Is Samsung even selling it now? It'll just release a new version soon.

It's not clear in the article whether this ruling only applies to the original GT 10.1, and doesn't apply to the GT 2 10.1. My understanding is that it applies to the Galaxy Tab 10.1, all revisions (in the same sense of an injunction against all versions of the iPad as opposed to only the original iPad). The Tab 2 10.1 is an iteration on the first one, not substantially different, so I suspect it's covered by this injunction.

Reading the actual injunction suggests that if it looks like the original Galaxy Tab 10.1, it's included in the injunction:

"Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Inc., and Samsung Telecommunications America, Inc., its officers, directors, partners, agents, servants, employees,attorneys, subsidiaries, and those acting in concert with any of them, are enjoined from making, using, offering to sell, or selling within the United States, or importing into the United States,Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer, and any product that is no more than colorably different from this specified product and embodies any design contained in U.S. Design Patent No.D504,889."

CNN is reporting that "it does not affect the updated Tab 10.1 II, which was unveiled in May 2012."

http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/27/tech/gaming-gadgets/judge-appl...

The Tab 2 10.1 has speakers facing forward, the same design they used in Germany to thwart that injunction.

That's clever and might work. Of course, I'm no expert on German patent law (nor on US, either, but I'm betting few to none on HN are), but perhaps there's a different standard? I'm wondering if the large encompassing "... embodies any design ..." will be a gotcha.

In the same vein, I think it's irrelevant even if affects the Tab 2 10.1. In terms of sales, none of the Tabs are significant to Samsung, relative to phone sales. I know someone can quote great sales numbers, but those tend to be the result of stuffing the channel. Out of every 1000 iPads I see in the wild, I see may 2 or 3 Tabs (though that number rises a bit when I'm at a tech conference. However, I see TONS of Samsung phones everyday.

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