Major news out of the ongoing legal battle between Samsung and Apple today, as a court in the Netherlands has hit Samsung with a preliminary injunction barring it from selling the Galaxy S, Galaxy S II, and Galaxy Ace in several European Union countries. The court has ruled that the devices in question violate European patent 2058868, a software patent which deals with swiping through a gallery of photos. The ban is scheduled to go into effect on October 13th and will block Samsung's Netherlands subsidiaries, which Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents points out are used as a primary distribution hub, from selling the three Galaxy devices.
It's worth mentioning that Apple alleged that Samsung was guilty of infringing on other patents in this case (like a method of swiping to unlock) and of copying Apple product designs, but the judge in the case seemingly didn't feel that Samsung infringed on those patents. Still, the decision seems like an important one in the tiff between Apple and Samsung, as Florian Mueller points out that the patent that Samsung has been found guilty of infringing upon may be related to one of the core apps that ships with Android. It should be interesting to see how Samsung responds to the ruling, and you know it will, so keep it locked to PhoneDog for more.
