After weeks of paying lawyers exorbitant amounts of money to argue the validity of Apple’s patent case against Samsung’s shiny new Galaxy Tab 10.1, the Federal Court in Sydney today decided to rule against Samsung, blocking the Korean giant from selling its 10-inch tablet in Australia.
The injunction is still only a temporary one, until the matter proceeds to a full hearing, likely to happen next year. That said, Samsung – who already delayed the launch of the tablet because of the court case – has stated previously that should an injunction be granted, they would simply not release the product in Australia, given that it would be using outdated technology by the time it launched.
The ramifications for this are potentially huge. If Apple succeeds in proving that Samsung breached its patents with its touchscreen and multi-touch interface, it will set a precedent that the Cupertino giant could use against almost any manufacturer of Android based tablet devices.
Given that competition is what makes technology thrive, this is truly the last thing anybody should want to happen. Let’s hope that Samsung manages to convince someone, somewhere, that the tablet in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey is enough to prove Apple didn’t create the tablets…
