Samsung VICTORY Over Apple is Double-Edged Sword

Samsung finally managed to get a court to rule in its favor in its patent battle with Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), though the judgment came with a barb from the judge for the company’s tablet. A High Court of England and Wales judge ruled that the Galaxy Tab had not infringed upon Apple’s patents as it wasn’t “cool” enough to be confused with the iPad. The Galaxy tablets “do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design,” Judge Colin Birss said in a ruling on Monday. “They are not as cool.”

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The judge found 50 different recognizable traits in the Samsung tablet that would ensure that consumers won’t get the two tablets mixed up. He found that the Galaxy Tab was distinctive because it was thinner and had “unusual details” on the back.

Apple has been given 21 days to appeal the decision.

The two global mobile leaders have been fighting patent lawsuits around the world, accusing each other of copying designs and technology. Apple has sought injunctions against Samsung products in the U.S., Germany, and the Netherlands. The U.K. ruling was something of a relief for the Korean company, which has seen more legal setbacks than its rival.

Last week, Samsung scored another small victory after a U.S. appeals court lifted a ban on sales of the Galaxy Nexus smartphone, which had already been pulled by Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) from its Google Play store. However, the same court upheld the decision to temporarily halt sales of the Galaxy 10.1 tablet in the U.S.

While Samsung was the top global seller of smartphones last quarter, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) was the dominant player in the tablet market. It sold 13.6 million iPads from January through March to own 63 percent of the market, compared with 1.6 million tablets or 7.5 percent of the market for Samsung.

Shares of Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) are trading higher 1% at $611.59 per share today despite the news.

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