One day before a Dutch ban on sales of its Galaxy smartphone is set to go into place, Samsung reportedly will jettison a feature that judges found violated an iPhone patent. The Netherlands had said it would ban sales of three offending Samsung smartphones beginning Thursday.
The design change, reported by South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, involves using “a different method of browsing pictures” on the Galaxy smartphone, according to the Associated Press. The Netherlands is not the only European country Samsung faces sales problems.
In early September, a German judge approved a permanent stop to sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1. In her ruling, Presiding Judge Johanna Brueckner-Hofmann wrote: “For the informed customer there remains the predominant overall impression that the device looks” like Apple’s iPad.
Samsung also faces potential sales bans in Australia, where the company has voluntarily withheld is device until a judge can rule on the merits of Apple’s allegations. Elsewhere, a Japanese court is also considering a case against Samsung. Samsung has not stood idly by, though. The South Korean firm recently sued Apple in France and has threatened to file a lawsuit in its home country to stop distribution of the new iPhone 4S.
