Apple has recently succeed in getting attention from International Trade Commission with their patent infringement law suit versus South Korean consumer electronics manufacturer Samsung. International Trade Commission can easily deny importation of consumer products which were judged to be connected with patent rights violations. But despite being capable of stopping imports of disputable products, ITC in the past didn’t act too often on this ground. Usually the threat of sanctions alone was sufficient to pressure companies into negotiations and this was in many cases followed by million s of dollars in patent fees payments.

Interestingly it seems that Samsung isn’t at this moment shipping their new product the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 to Australia although Samsung’s representatives claim that this isn’t connected with the fact that Apple has initiated a lawsuit against Samsung in Australian Federal Court.

Apple’s complaints are based on their claim that Samsung is copying Apple’s devices iPhone and iPad, especially the exterior design and the “feeling“ of the device. And to anyone who has ever seen both devices, iPad and Samsung’s latest 10.1 Tab the similarities will be more than obvious. But it is true that both devices use somewhat different hardware and they use different operative systems: Apple is using exclusively iOS for all their mobile devices and Samsung uses Google backed Android OS. It will be interesting to see Google’s position on this latest clash between Apple and Samsung.