South Korea's Samsung won a patent battle Monday
against US rival Apple, with a British judge ruling that Samsung's
Galaxy tablet was not "cool" enough to be confused with Apple's iPad.
Britain's high court ruled that the Galaxy
tablet made by Samsung, the world's largest electronics company, did not
infringe Apple's registered design and that consumers were not likely
to confuse it with the iPad tablet.
"They do not have the same understated and
extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design," Judge Colin
Birss said in his ruling.
"They are not as cool."
The iPad holds around 65 percent of the
burgeoning global tablet computer market, with the Samsung Galaxy making
up around 6 percent of global sales, according to researchers ABI and
IHS.
A Samsung spokeswoman welcomed the judgment and warned its rival against further legal action.
"Should Apple continue to make excessive
legal claims in other countries based on such generic designs,
innovation in the industry could be harmed and consumer choice unduly
limited," she said.
Apple and Samsung are engaged in a slew of
patent suits against each other in international courts, with both
companies vying for a bigger stake of the smartphone and tablet markets.
A US appeals court on Friday rejected
Samsung's bid to overturn a ban on US sales of its Galaxy Nexus
smartphones, which are made in collaboration with Google.
Also on Friday, Samsung said it expected a
record operating profit of 6.7 trillion won ($5.9 billion, 4.8 billion
euros) in the second quarter, amid strong sales of its mobile devices.
© 2012 AFP
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© 2012 AFP
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