IFA 2011- Samsung's flagship Galaxy Tab 10.1 now here in sight

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 at IFA 2011. The company's flagship Tab 10.1 cannot be shown due to a legal dispute with Apple.

Photograph: Sean Gallup/Getty Images  

Samsung may have launched two new Android tablets at the IFA technology show in Berlin, but it has found itself unable to include its flagship tablet on its stands.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1, which falls into the same size category as the iPad 2, is absent due to an injunction Apple won in August in a German court. Representatives from the company confirmed the device could not be shown at IFA, the largest and most significant gadget show in Europe, because all marketing of the tablet is banned under the injunction.

The tablet is the only one of Samsung's Android range that is banned, and only in Germany. A Duesseldorf court originally granted Apple a temporary injunction covering the entire EU, with the exception of the Netherlands, but Samsung subsequently complained that the court was overreaching its jurisdiction, and the court reduced the ban area to the country where it sits.

Apple gained its injunction because, it said, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 infringed on design rights that are supposedly exclusive to the iPad line. Indeed, Samsung appears to be taking care that its new tablets are not of equivalent size to Apple's tablet – the new Galaxy Tab 7.7 is noticeably smaller, as is the 5.3in-screened Galaxy Note.

The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is also banned in Australia, which is another of the many territories in which Samsung and Apple are battling it out. There, the case will progress with further hearing at the end of September. In Germany, Samsung will get another chance to plead its case at a 9 September hearing.
Samsung representatives at IFA said they were unable to comment further on the 10.1in device's absence, due to the ongoing court case with Apple.

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