Samsung Postpones Launch of Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia

While legal battle between Apple and Samsung continues, Samsung is selling another version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia "In The Near Future".

Bloomberg has reported that Samsung Electronics Co. agreed not to sell the region-specific version of its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia until it wins court approval or the lawsuit is resolved on a court hearing on Monday, regarding the patent lawsuit between Apple Inc. and Samsung, which Apple claimed the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 infringes 10 Apple patents.

Should Samsung won the patent lawsuit eventually, Apple agreed to pay Samsung damages, but Samsung also agreed not to advertise or sell the Galaxy Tab 10.1 until the lawsuit is resolved. Samsung later made an official comment on the issue, said the Apple Inc. had "filed a complaint with the Federal Court of Australia involving a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 variant that Samsung Electronics had no plans of selling in Australia." According to the statement, no injunction has been issued by the count, and said the Australian version of the device is going to be released in "the near future". Samsung had then postponed the media launch event which was scheduled on 11th August 2011 in Australia.

According to a more detailed interview with Samsung on the issue, Samsung has made two versions of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, one of them is the variant that Apple had presented in the court hearing, while the other one is the Australian variant. Samsung denies to comment the differences between the two variants, but stated that it has agreed not to sell the former variant, while three units of the latter variant will be provided to Apple to review for 7 days once it's finalized.

However, FOSS Patents points out in a follow-up report that "..the statement is actually very weak. It is, in fact, an admission of pretty serious problems because it denies only strawmen and navigates around the real issues." Florian Mueller of FOSS also invited Samsung to explain why the Australian variant will be more defensible than the other variant as far as Apple's asserted patents are concerned.

The Australian variant was once reported to have kept the look and feel, as well as dimensions of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 that first appeared in CES on January 2011. Samsung later trimmed the thickness of the device and changed the back cover design to become the version that is now selling in the U.S. and some other countries. Apart from the appearance, it is hard to differentiate the two with the specifications.

Samsung is now facing a huge thread even it has offered a chance the finalize the Australian variant. If Samsung take out the functions that might violate any of Apple's patents, it means Samsung somehow agrees that the U.S. variant does infringe some of Apple's patents. Also, should the Australian variant is just similar to the other version, Apple can still request for an injunction. Either way, Samsung will loss one of the mature markets, and leads to unfavorable positions in ongoing patent infringement lawsuits.

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Samsung Postpones Launch of Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia

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anonymous2012-06-29 03:23

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