iPad hasn't cornered market on round corners, says Dutch court

(Credit: Samsung)

Samsung's Galaxy tablets do not infringe Apple's design patents relating to the iPad, a court in the Netherlands ruled today.

In a judgment handed down by a district court in The Hague, the court found that the rounded corners of the Galaxy Tab 10.1, 8.9, and 7.7 did not infringe the patents held by Apple, citing a similar case in the British courts last year, which also found in favor of Samsung.

In a statement given to the Reuters news agency, Samsung said: "We continue to believe that Apple was not the first to design a tablet with a rectangular shape and rounded corners and that the origins of Apple's registered design features can be found in numerous examples."

In October last year, Apple lost a case at the U.K. High Court in London, in which the Cupertino, Calif.-based technology giant argued that Samsung's range of tablets infringed its design by using a similar rounded rectangle design. The court found that Apple's patents were not infringed.

And that's when it all started to get a little bit strange.

Apple was forced by a court order to run so-called "apology" advertisements on its U.K. Web site and in a number of British printed publications. Apple placed a note on its U.K. Web site slamming the decision, embellishing the court-ordered text with additional detail ... [Read more]





by Zack Whittaker via CNET