[RockdaMan]

A judge in Düsseldorf said Thursday that Apple’s intellectual property rights are probably strong enough to ban sales of Samsung Electronics’ rival Galaxy 10.1 tablet computers in Germany.

“There are a lot of alternative ways to design a tablet device, as the market amply shows,” the judge said at a hearing. “We think Apple’s E.U. design rights grant a medium range of protection, if not a broad one.”

Samsung lost an unrelated case involving Apple on Wednesday before a Dutch court over sales of some smartphones there. That court took a different view on tablets, saying Samsung did not violate Apple’s rights to the tablet’s design.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/bu...er=rss&emc=rss