Hours after a European judge lifted a ban on the sale of the Samsung Galaxy 10.1″ Tablet, Apple is facing the real prospect that the iPhone and iPad could be banned from being sold in several countries with several vendors looking to take action directly against Apple.SmartHouse has been told by an HTC executive that several patent owners have discussed the prospect of launching multiple patent breach applications against Apple in an effort to have sales of the iPhone and iPad banned in the same way that Apple gained bans on the Galaxy 10.1 in Australia and Europe.
The ban on the sale of Samsung’s Galaxy 10.1 across Europe has been temporarily lifted while a court looks at whether the original ruling was appropriate. A Judge is expected to take the same approach in Australia when an application by Apple goes back before the Federal Court on the 29th of August.
SmartHouse has been told after consultation with the likes of Google and several Android device manufacturers they believe they have a case to.
The BBC said that in Europe questions were raised over whether the German court had the right to instigate an EU-wide ban.The ban still holds in Germany.
The Netherlands was always exempt as Apple sought to pursue broader claims there, largely because the country’s ports are where many technology companies import their goods into the EU.
The overturning of the ban was originally reported by Webwereld, a Dutch IT news site.
Patent law blogger Florian Mueller confirmed that the Dusseldorf court where the injunction was lodged had lifted the ban until a court hearing later this month.
“Apart from the immediate commercial benefits that this provides to Samsung, it’s an unpleasant situation for Apple,” he wrote.
Should the court really find that the Dusseldorf court didn’t have personal jurisdiction over a Korean company, this would reinforce a lot of peoples’ impression that Apple’s enforcement of design-related rights is, even though understandable to a certain degree, overreaching in some areas.”
Apple is also facing accusations that the document that helped it gain the original injunction on sales of the Galaxy Tab in Europe appears to misrepresent the device’s similarity to the iPad.
Read: Apple Caught Faking Evidence Against Samsung HERE
A side-by-side comparison of the two tablets features a “squashed” picture of the Galaxy Tab, making it look identical in size and shape.
