14 DAY TRIAL // The Australian court had delayed the release of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet until today (December 9, 2012) to see if Apple could appeal the decision, but the time has passed so the item can finally sell now.
After months of legal tensions, the court in Australia lifted the preliminary injunction granted against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android tablet.
Samsung will probably issue an announcement sooner or later, about how it had triumphed (for now) and how the item will finally reach hopeful customers, even in time for Christmas.
Vodafone didn't have any qualms about going forward with its own announcement though.
The carrier will offer a subsidized version of the device, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say ten.
While the tablet is the same in each instance, there are ten offers, five on 24-month contracts and five on 12-month contracts.
To offer some background, when the Samsung Galaxy tab 10.1 was introduced, Apple began to go after it in court with a vengeance.
Its confidence seemed to be rewarded when a judge approved an injunction against the item, the same way Germany banned it.
If the legal battle had been allowed to go on on those terms, and even if it settled, eventually, in Samsung's favor, Apple would have still ended the patent war on higher ground, since it would have greatly delayed Samsung's entry in the tablet sector and, most importantly, prevented it from establishing any sort of foothold there, in Australia anyway.
Later, though, the appeal court found some things in Apple's case suspicious and eventually ruled that the original ruling was, indeed, unjust, so the ban was lifted.
Apple was given a respite until today to see if it could and would appeal this latest decision, but the days passed and nothing more happened.
This was due to the High Court of Australia rejecting its request to contest the Federal Court's decision.