Anchor: An Australian high court has rejected an appeal by Apple to maintain a sales ban on Samsung Electronics’ tablet PCs. On Thursday, however, the Korean electronics company was dealt a blow as a French court turned down its request to suspend the sale of Apple’s iPhone 4S in France. Our Kim Soyon has the details.

Report: The High Court of Australia has denied Apple’s appeal to maintain a ban on the sale of Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet PC, calling Apple’s claim groundless. With this final ruling delivered Friday local time, Samsung can now resume selling the product in Australia within a matter of days.

The victory came only a day after a Paris court rejected Samsung’s request to issue a preliminary sales injunction on Apple's new iPhone 4S over its violation of Samsung’s wireless-communications patents. Judge Marie-Christine Courboulay said “the disproportionate character of the ban sought by Samsung against Apple is clear.”

The pending legal battles between the companies are growing more chaotic following the rulings in Australia and France. Legal experts say neither side can win the battle easily.

Aside from German and Dutch courts that banned the sale of Samsung’s mobile devices, courts in other countries have refrained from issuing such heavy rulings although they partially recognize the patent violation claims Samsung and Apple accuse of each other.

Samsung argued in a Dutch court that Apple violated its third-generation wireless patents to suspend sales of iPhones. In the U.S. and Australia, Apple took issue with the similarity of Samsung products' designs and user interfaces to its own. But neither side succeeded to win a court ban on the sale of the other’s product. The American court ruled last week that Apple's smartphone design patents were likely infringed by Samsung's products, but no irreparable harm had been caused on the market.

Courts around the country are issuing compromises along the lines of acknowledging that a sales ban is an excessive request although some patent infringements are recognizable.
Samsung’s latest victory in Australia has brightened prospects of a separate suit filed by Apple against Samsung over patent infringement. But as the results of the case are expected to come out only next year, many experts believe that Samsung and Apple will do their best to win the lawsuits but they are likely to start negotiations sometime in the first half of next year.

Kim Soyon, KBS World Radio News.