iPad 2 vs Galaxy Tab 10.1: German Court Suspends Injunction for Most EU Countries

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The Apple vs Samsung legal battle offered us a new episode today with the South Korean giant being the small victor in this important tech soap opera. But it would seem that the German ruling doesn’t have anything to with the yesterday’s allegations regarding Apple’s potential tampering with the Galaxy Tab images presented in the documents handed to the German court.

The court in Düsseldorf decided to partially lift the temporary injunction against Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales in the EU (except for Germany) as it realized that a German court wasn’t necessarily a body that could prevent “a company headquartered in South Korea from selling goods outside Germany.”

Samsung will still not be able to sell the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany, and Samsung Germany is not allowed to sell the tablet anywhere else in the European Union until the court will rule on Samsung’s appeal, scheduled for August 25.

Today’s ruling doesn’t change anything for German consumers, or European consumers that planned to order a Galaxy Tab 10.1 from Samsung Germany. But Samsung is free to sell the Honeycomb tablet in any other European market, which is quite an important decision in favor of Samsung. According to the WSJ, “Samsung said in emailed statement on Tuesday that it welcomes the court’s decision to suspend the pan-European preliminary injuction against the Galaxy Tab 10.1.” Of course they do as this decision could have a significant impact on Samsung’s tablet sales in the region, although Samsung may never share with the world its actual mobile device sales performance in upcoming quarterly earnings reports, and whether these legal proceedings affected the general Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales.

Apple could file similar lawsuits with Samsung in other EU markets to request similar injunctions, although, at this point, there’s no statement available from Apple concerning its German case against Samsung. We’re yet to see an official position from Cupertino’s German lawyers regarding the allegedly doctored images we showed you yesterday but also regarding today’s German ruling.