Apple has failed in its attempt to overturn a High Court ruling that the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 doesn't infringe on Apple-held design patents for the iPad.
As a result, Apple will now have to go ahead with the initial punishment dished out by Judge Colin Birss: to post a notice on its own website and in major newspapers and magazines acknowledging Samsung's tablet isn't a copycat of its own.
That was the unprecedented punishment ordered by Birss after the court denied Apple's attempt to get an injunction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the UK based on copyright infringement – just one of several similar cases the two companies have fought out over the past 18 months.
As expected, Apple appealed against against the decision, but the Court of Appeal has ruled it doesn't have a case and the original penalty stands.
Sir Robin Jacob, one of the trio of judges that heard Apple's appeal, pointed out that despite the media attention the case has understandably generated around the world, the matter at the heart of it all remains a relatively simple one.
“It is not about whether Samsung copied Apple's iPad,” Jacob explained. “Infringement of a registered design does not involve any question of whether there was copying: the issue is simply whether the accused design is too close to the registered design, according to the tests laid down in the law.
“So this case is all about, and only about, Apple's registered design and the Samsung products,” he added.
