Apple has lost an initial court ruling in a case to ban the sales and import of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1N in Germany.

Apple and Samsung has been in a long standing battle over designs and patents for quite a while now, with the South Korean company saying that it will change the Galaxy Tab 10.1 design to stop the fruit-themed American company from pursuing the tablet.

“The newly modified device will be renamed the Galaxy Tab 10.1N and we’ve made two changes to the design,” said Samsung representative Jason Kim. “The design of the bezel has been changed and the speaker has also been relocated.”

Apple as expected was not so eager on this solution and released a statement saying, “It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging. This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple’s intellectual property when companies steal our ideas.”

Image: Sam Howzit via Flickr (CC)

After its statement regarding the changes Samsung did to circumvent charges of design-copying, Apple still continued its appeal to ban the tablet, with the ruling delivered earlier today.

Reuters reports that the German judge handling the case rejected Apple’s claims after seeing that Samsung had sufficiently made enough hardware modifications to set it apart from the Apple iPad and iPhone designs.

“According to the court’s assessment, the defendant has moved away sufficiently from the legally protected design,” said Judge Johanna Brueckner-Hofmann.

About Francis Rey Balolong

A coffee junkie who spends most of his time writing about the latest news on social media and mobile technology. I would definitely consider myself a nerd (in the coolest most hipster way possible). That being said, I love technology, music, writing, and all things mobile. Follow me: Google+ Twitter

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