A U.S. court handed Apple a major victory on Tuesday, granting the company a preliminary injunction that prohibits the sale of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab Android-powered tablet in the U.S. The decision from Judge Lucy Koh was handed down despite her earlier public antipathy towards granting Apple an injunction.
“Although Samsung has a right to compete, it does not have a right to compete unfairly, by flooding the market with infringing products,” Judge Koh wrote on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
Bloomberg added that Judge Koh wrote, “In this case, although Samsung will necessarily be harmed by being forced to withdraw its product from the market before the merits can be determined after a full trial, the harm faced by Apple absent an injunction on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is greater.”
This marks the first major product injunction won by any of the companies duking it out with Apple over various and sundry patent infringement claims. Just last week, Judge Richard Posner threw out claims between Motorola Mobility and Apple, with prejudice, meaning that neither company can re-file those same claims (though both can appeal).
Judge Koh’s decision to grant Apple an injunction came after an appeals court told the judge to reconsider her decision not to grant a preliminary injunction. That court said that Apple was likely to win its patent infringement claims against Samsung.