Apple has won a preliminary injunction in a Dutch court preventing Samsung from selling its Galaxy smart phones across Europe, including the UK.
The ban will be effective on October, giving Samsung seven weeks to retrieve stock, manage existing shipments and appeal against the ruling.
The decision specifically applies to the camera element of the phone, where Apple's software patent covers “portable electronic device for photo management”.
The restriction does not apply to the Galaxy tablets, as was the case in a German ruling in early August. In that case, the German court placed an injunction across Europe which was soon lifted, as the court's jurisdiction did not cover the continent.
The court order applies to three different Samsung subsidiaries registered in the Netherlands, not to the Korean parent company itself. If they wanted to draw further fire from Apple, the Korean company could continue to distribute the Galaxy phones into Europe bypassing its Netherlands-based arm.
The FossPatents blog speculates that the ruling could affect Android more generally, saying '...regardless of how Samsung may be able to work around this decision in Europe, it's a severe blow for Android. In all likelihood, the winning patent is infringed by Android itself.'
Read the Apple v. Samsung court documents on the Foss Patents blog and in Dutch here.