Have Apple misled a judge while getting Samsung Galaxy Tab banned?

Have Apple misled a judge while getting Samsung Galaxy Tab banned?: "

Uh-oh! Apple has been taking everyone to the cleaners about various patents that they reckon they invented for the iPad. The fist big victim was the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, getting pulled off the shelves until some sort of agreement was made.

However, it seems that Apple and their lawyers may have misled the judge who took their side by inadvertently filing flawed evidence and not providing an accurate picture of the similarity between the two devices.

It has been reported that at least one of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 pictures that Apple provided as evidence was either wrong or, worse still, manipulated. The photographic evidence submitted by Apple shows a picture of the iPad 2 and the ‘Galaxy Tab 10.1′ with the claim that the “overall appearance” of the two are “practically identical.”

Sadly for Apple, it seems that picture they submitted of the Galaxy doesn’t match with the real one. It seems someone has either accidentally or intentionally altered the aspect ratio on the image of the Samsung device, making it look more like the iPad 2.

Arnout Groen, a lawyer with the Dutch firm Klos Morel Vos & Schaap, specialized in intellectual property rights litigation, says: “This is a blunder. That such a ‘mistake’ is made in a case about design rights can scarcely be a coincidence. … The aspect ratio of the alleged Galaxy Tab is clearly distorted to match the iPad more closely. Inasmuch as this faux pas will have consequences for the case is of course up to the judge. But at least a reprimand by the German judge seems to be in order.”

Does this mean the litigation is going to be thrown out, leaving the door open for everyone else to muscle in on Apple’s domination of the tablet market, or are Apple being stupid and should trust that their product is likely to continue to rule the tablet roost?

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