Back in July, the High Court in London ruled against Apple in a patent suit against Samsung, saying that consumers were unlikely to mistake its iPad with Samsung’s Galaxy Tab because it “wasn’t as cool.”
As a result of the ruling, Judge Colin Birss ordered Apple to run advertisements on both its UK website and in British publications stating that Samsung didn’t copy the iPad to correct the damaging impression.
Well, Apple might want to start planning its marketing campaign. Because it just lost the appeal…
Reuters reports:
“Apple Inc lost its appeal of a ruling that its rival Samsung’s Galaxy tablet computer did not copy Apple’s registered tablet designs in a British court on Thursday.
The decision is valid throughout Europe and should prohibit further legal disputes between the two companies over the design of tablets such as the iPad in the region.”
Apple can still, as a last-ditch effort, appeal to the Supreme Court. But the report goes on to say that the Cupertino company has shown no signs up to this point that it has any plans on doing that.
Here’s what Samsung had to say about the ruling:
“We continue to believe that Apple was not the first to design a tablet with a rectangular shape and rounded corners and that the origins of Apple’s registered design features can be found in numerous examples of prior art.
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.”
Apple declined to comment.
Although this may stifle design patent litigation between the two companies in Europe, they’re still going at it on other continents. Recently, Apple appealed a court decision in Japan, and the two parties are set to meet again in December here in the US.
What do you think of this decision? Any suggestions on how Apple could spin the Samsung ad?