Apple unlikely to win ban on Samsung Galaxy 10.1N, court says

Apple Inc. is unlikely to win a ban on sales of Samsung Electronics Co.'s Galaxy 10.1N tablet computer, a modified version introduced after sales of the original tablet were blocked, a German court said.

The Dusseldorf court that banned sales of the Galaxy 10.1 on Sept. 9 is unlikely to grant Apple an injunction against the Galaxy 10.1N, Presiding Judge Johanna Brueckner-Hofmann said at a hearing today. Samsung has changed the device's design sufficiently to distance it from the iPad, she said, adding that the view is preliminary and can still change.

“Consumers are well aware that there is an original and that competitors try to use similar designs, so buyers are vigilant when looking at products,” Brueckner-Hofmann said. “We don't think that someone buys a Samsung to make his table neighbor at the coffee house believe he owns an iPad.”

Germany has become one of the central venues of the legal battle between Cupertino, California-based Apple and its closest rival in tablet computers after the iPad maker made headlines by winning the September injunction.

Technology companies, including Suwon, South Korea-based Samsung, Apple, Microsoft Corp. and Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. are fighting each other in courts around to world to stake out intellectual property claims in the growing market for tablets. As many as 2.1 million tablet computers will be sold in Germany in 2011, an increase of 162 percent from 2010, Bitkom, a technology and telecommunications association, said last week.