One of Class 99's favourite German judges, Johanna Brueckner-Hofmann in Dusseldorf, has held that Samsung's tablet computer was too close to Apple's Registered Community Design, thereby making the interlocutory injunction 'permanent' (although there are also substantive proceedings on foot in Dusseldorf).  According to the MSN News coverage, the evidence showed several other tablet computers on the market which were different enough to avoid infringement - the Apple design didn't monopolise tablet computers, as a whole, but Samsung's iPad killer was not different enough to avoid it. 

Samsung are reputedly going to appeal, but Brueckner-Hofmann has a lot of design judgments under her belt, so we shall see how keen the Appeal Court is to overturn her over the next year or so.  The Hague court, however, has taken a different view on the design, refusing an injunction on that basis (although it found an Apple patent infringed). 

Each of these courts only has jurisdiction for acts of local design infringement, so their judgments can coexist.  Various bloggers seem to be suggesting that parallel importers could therefore bring product from the Netherlands into Germany - but that certainly isn't my understanding - the goods in the Netherlands aren't in any way franked or licensed by Apple so I can't see how the "free movement of goods" doctrine is engaged.

As both Samsung and Apple are non-EU companies, absent a local entity to sue the Court with pan-EU jurisdiction would be the statutory default, Alicante Commercial Court.  Do any readers happen to know whether Apple are seeking a pan-EU injunction down there in Spain?