Apple scored another victory in its patent battle against Samsung today when a German court upheld the preliminary injunction banning sales of the company’s Galaxy 10.1 tablet computer in the country.

@YungJohnnybravo @TatWZA 

“The court is of the opinion that Apple’s minimalistic design isn’t the only technical solution to make a tablet computer, other designs are possible,” Presiding Judge Johanna Brueckner-Hofmann said in her verdict. “For the informed customer there remains the predominant overall impression that the device looks [like the iPad].”

This is the second time the Düsseldorf Regional Court has upheld this particular injunction, and while it declined to extend the ban to the rest of the European Union as Apple had hoped, it’s still an important victory. Germany is Europe’s third-largest tablet market after Britain and France, according to Strategy Analytics. And as Florian Mueller notes over at FOSS Patents, there’s no quick and easy way for Samsung to have the ban lifted.

“The preliminary injunction stays in force until it is either overturned by the Higher Regional Court in a fast-track appeals proceeding or by the (lower) Regional Court at the end of the full-blown main proceeding, which would probably take about a year,” Mueller explains. “If the outcome of the full-blown main proceeding (including possible appeals of that one to one or two higher courts) is that the preliminary injunction was rightfully granted, it becomes a permanent injunction.”

[allthingsd]