Ben Grubb at The Sydney Morning Herald reports that as of tomorrow, Australian tablet lovers should be able to get their hands on one of the hottest rivals to the Apple iPad, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. An appeals court overturned a judge’s decision to ban the device from sale.
While this was a victory for Samsung, it was not a total win, as the court granted a request from Apple to continue the ban until 4PM tomorrow to allow Apple time to prepare an appeal. Australian retailers and Galaxy fans will now await an announcement from Samsung as to when the tablet will be made available for sale.
The full bench of the Federal Court agreed unanimously to reverse a Federal Court judge’s ruling that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 be banned from sale in Australia.
Mr. Grubb reports:
Samsung had argued that the judge who ordered its Galaxy Tab 10.1 to be banned, Justice Annabelle Bennett, ”misunderstood and misapplied” basic requirements of the law and said elements of her reasoning were ”grossly unjust”.
In their judgment, the justices said that Justice Bennett ”failed to evaluate” the competing constructions of Apple’s heuristics patent. ”She should have found that there was no arguable case of infringement of the heuristics patent,” their judgment said. But as the judgment was being handed down, Apple was granted a short stay until 4pm tomorrow by Justice Foster, meaning Samsung will not be able to sell its tablet until then.
Peter Chalk, a Samsung legal representative, opposed the stay, saying it served ”to prolong the injustice held against Samsung. Any stay, even of a short duration, should not be granted.”
We’ll continue to keep our eye on this legal battle and report developments as they occur.
