Samsung and Apple (News - Alert) have been having quite the bitter feud over the last few months. Most of that feud centers around Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy tab. Across the globe, the iPad maker has been trying to get courts from places as far flung as Australia to bar Samsung (News - Alert) from selling their tablet based on accusations that the design is far too close to the iPad. The 10.1 inch tablet was previously launched in the United States last June and unveiled to most of the world over the course of the summer.

Apple has long had a problem with its competitors because it feels as though their tablets are basically stealing technology from the iPad. Off and on, the company has had some success barring the sales of tablets in different countries but they suffered a pretty good defeat in a German court, which issued a ruling saying that the Galaxy Tab 10.1N tablet would be allowed to be sold in Germany as of last Thursday.

Samsung did actually redesign the Galaxy Tab because of some concerns by other courts that it was indeed quite similar to the iPad. The Dusseldorf-based court said that the revamping was enough to avoid patent infringement. The court actually dealt Apple another blow by basically declaring that the Galaxy Tab 10.1N was “of equal value” to the Apple iPad. 

This particular ruling is quite the defeat for Apple, which had managed to get the German courts to ban the sale of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in November because it was simply too close to the iPad in design. The Dusseldorf court was actually the third German court which has ruled that the Galaxy Tab 10.1N is sufficiently different from the iPad to allow the selling of it at German retailers.

While Apple had made headway in convincing courts to ban their competitors products earlier in the year, the company also suffered defeats in December when courts in San Jose, California and in Australia both said they would no longer block Samsung’s tablets or smartphones from being sold.