Dutch court denies Samsung's request to block Apple products

As the unending battle between Apple and Samsung continues into its third epoch, a Dutch court today denied Samsung's request for an injunction against every single Apple product that uses 3G technology. According to Reuters, the Dutch court not only denied Samsung's requested injunction, its ruling pretty much put an end to Samsung's hope of getting other EU countries, like Italy and France, to rule that Apple infringed on Samsung's patents.

The court found that Samsung's 3G patents were part of the essential standards that should be licensed under FRAND, a fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory licensing obligation for technological standards. Intellectual property expert Florian Mueller told Reuters that the ruling was "a win for Apple but also relief for the industry because the judge upheld widespread understanding of fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms in the use of patents."

Besides being locked into lawsuits on four continents, Samsung has also tried to undermine Apple's iPhone by using logic-defying reasoning to plead that a 9.9mm thick phone is thinner than a 9.3mm thick phone and by selling its Galaxy S2 for $2 in a pop-up store across the street from an Apple Store on the launch day of the iPhone 4S.

[photo by fPat Murray]