Judge issues injunction on Samsung Galaxy Tab sales in US

A US Judge has given Apple what it wanted. It has granted Apple’s bid to stop the Galaxy Tab being sold in the US which is a win for Apple and the iPad.

“Although Samsung has a right to compete, it does not have a right to compete unfairly, by flooding the market with infringing products,” Koh wrote on Tuesday.

Apple though must post $2.6 billion bond to protect against damages which Samsung will suffer if the injunction is found to be wrong later on in time.

“The relief being given to Apple here is extraordinary. Preliminary injunctions are rarely asked for and rarely granted,” said Colleen Chien who is a professor at Santa Clara Law in Silicon Valley. “That this was a design patent and copying was alleged distinguish this case from plain vanilla utility patent cases. Cases involving these kinds of patents are based more on a counterfeiting theory than a competition theory, so I don’t expect this case to have ramifications for all smartphone disputes, but rather those involving design patents and the kind of product resemblance we had here.”

I think it’s quite interesting that Apple has been able to do this. Considering like Chien said, most injunctions are rarely granted i’m surprised that this has happened but it is a win for Apple, even though they control the market well and the Galaxy Tablet series is a distant section to the iPad in the tablet market.

Apple does control over 50% of the market, 63% to be exact after Apple sold 13.6 million iPad’s between January and March. Samsung sold a mere 1.6 million tablets which gives it a small percentage at 7.5% of the market.

This injunction though won’t be great for Samsung, with Microsoft introducing its line of tablets for the market Samsung could see that in the US that their tablet could be a long lost thing and that they could never get stability. If Microsoft’s tablets do well Samsung’s shares could fall flat on their face, not the best thing to have if the injunction turns out to be wrong later on because I’m sure Samsung don’t think much of the bond.

Do you think it’s fair or wrong?

Source : Reuters