The Samsung Galaxy S II is one of three smartphones banned from sale in the EU (technically)
Competency issues be damned. A Dutch court has passed an EU-wide injunction that has banned the sale of the Samsung Galaxy S, Galaxy S II and Ace smartphones after a lawsuit from Apple, despite questions about the evidence provided.
Samsung will now have seven weeks to stop the sales of the phones. Do note that it is a preliminary injunction – so it isn’t technically a win for Apple, yet. The full injunction can be found below (in Dutch, so if you happen to understand it, go ahead and read it):
According to FOSS Patents, the injunction appears to not apply to Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia, and Spain due to some legal technicality. In addition, it only applies to the Netherlands subsidiary of Samsung – not the parent company. So therefore, Samsung could shift its European hub from the Netherlands to some other European country in order to circumvent the restriction.
However, it also appears there is some doubt on the evidence that Apple has made. The doubts stem from another article from a Dutch publication, claiming that Apple may have resized the images of the Samsung Galaxy S in order to appear it to be the same size as the phone.
The news comes after a German court placed a ban on the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 that covered the entire EU, before limiting it to only Germany due to issues over competency – whether it has the right to make judgements for the entire EU.