Edible Apple

Apple yesterday was on the receiving end of a favorable judgement from the district court of Dusseldorf, Germany when it ruled that Samsung was barred from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet anywhere in Europe, save for the Netherlands. Further, for each discovered violation, Samsung will have to either pony up $350,000 or have its management imprisoned. Yep, this German court isn’t playing around.

It’s important to point out that the injunction against Samsung isn’t rooted in utility patents but rather in hardware design – namely that the Galaxy Tab too closely resembles the iPad. And whadya know, Apple filed suit in the same German court asking for what appears to be a similar injunction against the Motorola Xoom and a German company called JAY-tech.

FOSS Patents writes:

That passage says that Apple filed with the same court (district court of Düsseldorf) a complaint over the design of the Motorola Xoom, but it doesn’t state whether that complaint included a request for a preliminary injunction. While it’s not stated explicitly, I suppose that the complaint against Motorola also asks the court for an EU-wide injunction — but perhaps just for a permanent injunction without a previous preliminary one.

The other company that Apple sued in Germany, JAY-tech, was served a preliminary injunction, and according to Apple’s representations, it was upheld by the court “in its entirety” even after a hearing. The complaint doesn’t say on which operating system JAY-tech’s banned tablet was going to run, but Android would be by far and away the most likely option.

Apple’s going hard and pulling out all the stops to thwart any iPad competitor from even getting a foot up off the ground. Remember that last week Apple was awarded a similar injunction against Samsung in Australia that precludes the Korean company from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the land down under.