In delivering the ruling, judge Andreas Mueller suggested that the court didn’t like Apple’s chances for maintaining the validity of the patent claim, saying that “Samsung has shown that it is more likely than not that the patent will be revoked because of a technology that was already on the market before the intellectual property had been filed for protection.”

It’s a win for Samsung, and one that will no doubt take the sting out of a ruling Tuesday that saw a Düsseldorf court uphold an injunction against the original Galaxy Tab 10.1. This injunction also would have applied to a technical patent, not design IP, which would’ve been much harder for Samsung to work around with simple software or hardware modifications.

Samsung’s bigger concern will still be the pending European Commission’s investigation related to its legal use of patents requiring fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) licensing terms, which the EU regulatory body formally announced on Tuesday.

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Samsung has agreed not to sell or advertise the Galaxy Tab 10.1 before the court’s decision, which should come down following a hearing scheduled for Sept. 26 and 29. Initially, FOSS Patents reports, Samsung’s lawyers were actually opposed to the idea of another delay of the product launch, but the judge advised that launching despite the pending issue of the preliminary injunction wouldn’t be wise. After some internal discussion between Samsung execs and its legal team, the company agreed to hold off.

In an attempt to stave off a preliminary injunction in Australia, Samsung slightly altered the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Apple’s initial delay was so that it could receive and examine the new model to see if it still considered it in violation of its intellectual property. There’s no word on what specifically is changed about the Australian Tab, but Apple’s lawyers discussed its “reduced functionality,” though it still thinks the device is too close of a copycat.

After a limited Dutch injunction against Galaxy smartphones and a reaffirmed German injunction against the Tab both came down last week, it looks like Apple is gaining some momentum in its intellectual property fight with Samsung. The actual trials are where we’ll really start to see how things will ultimately shake out, but with a California court agreeing to expedite a trial in that district, we won’t have to wait too long before the action starts.

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The Northern District of California court granted Apple’s request for an expedited trial on Thursday, FOSS Patents reports, although it didn’t quite give the company everything it was looking for. Apple had asked that the trial, which will issue a decision based on Apple’s original complaints of infringement related to mobile patents it holds as well as counterclaims made by Samsung, take place in February 2012.

Samsung objected to any sort of expedited timeline, arguing that there are 43 distinct claims to be addressed at the trial and that such complexity required more time. The median time for a similar case to come to trial in the district is 23 months, which would make for a March 2013 start date.

While the court didn’t agree to the proposed February date, it did set one much earlier than what Samsung called for. The trial will take place on July 30, 2012, just 15 and a half months after Apple’s original filing. FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller believes this will work out in Apple’s favor, since the schedule is ambitious and Samsung is on the defensive and will therefore have less time to organize its case.

Samsung also won a smaller victory in that some of Apple’s legal team withdrew in the face of a motion from Samsung to disqualify them, because they had previously worked for the South Korean company on cases in the same general ballpark, which might give them an unfair advantage. Mueller thinks this victory is relatively minor, considering the wealth of talent available to Apple in terms of high-quality intellectual property lawyers.

Apple isn’t running away with the game when it comes to its legal struggle with Samsung, but it is chalking up small victories that could lead to larger ones down the road. When the trial proper gets under way next summer, I expect we’ll start to see some real sparks fly, since the stakes should be even higher by then.

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In November of 2004, a few months after I got my first Mac (a PowerMac G5), I registered theappleblog.com not really having any big plans of what I’d do with the site. I was a senior design student in college and just wanted a new site to design and something to write about.

My first post was, shall we say, anti-climactic…but I had to start somewhere. Within the first week of the site being up, I somehow convinced three different people to write some 20+ posts, and within a month, with the addition of another couple writers, had close to 80 posts.

But I seriously doubt that TAB would have lasted for more than a few months had it not been for the massive amounts of effort put in by Dan Lurie, Chris Holland and Nick Santilli. Those three guys, plus the combined efforts of some 65+ contributors over the past four years, have made TAB what it is today. I was so lucky to find so many people who wanted to help out, and I’m truly grateful for every single person who has contributed over the years.

So, with all of the “I love you man” out of the way, I’ve got some really great news. As of Friday, Sept. 12, The Apple Blog is now a part of the Giga Omni Media family! Giga Omni Media is home to publications such as GigaOM and WebWorkerDaily, as well as the Mobilize Conference and the GigaOm Show.

So what the heehaw does that mean for all of you?

What it does not mean is that we’ll be making massive changes that will make us lame. Lame isn’t on the list of things we’d like to do with the blog…so have no fear. What it does mean is that we’ll be able to provide you with more iPhone/iPod coverage, more news analysis, more product reviews, more Mac tips and tricks, and more quality coverage in general of anything and everything related to Apple.

I’m honored for The Apple Blog to be a part of such a solid group of publications, and really look forward to where The Apple Blog will go in the coming months and years. I’ll be staying on board with the transition as will a number of our great contributors.

Finally, thanks so much for being a reader of The Apple Blog. It really means a lot to have so many people enjoying and getting a thing or two out of our articles. My hope is that we can continue to provide you with the content you want to read with the quality you deserve.

And, as a side note, if you’ll be in San Francisco for the Mobilize Conference (or just there in general this Wednesday through Friday), let me know. We could have a little TAB meetup.

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iTunes Store submission has also been made, and we’ll let you know when you can subscribe via that option as well.

You can now subscribe via iTunes Podcast.

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I’ll have a full writeup in the morning about new features and what not, so look for that.

In the meantime, if you notice any bugs/browser quirks/etc, please either post them here or contact us.

There is still quite a bit to do in terms of getting the new forms of organization up (specifically tags), so no worries…that is indeed on its way.

Also, I’m well aware that not everyone will love the new design. It’s a far cry from every previous design…which was precisely my goal. I’ve really felt like previous designs were a bit of visual overload with all the various colors and patterns so I really wanted to put something out there that didn’t fight with the content as much.

Your feedback is certainly appreciated, but before screaming “I HATE TAB, THIS DESIGN SUCKS, I’M NEVER COMING BACK!”…let it soak in a bit.

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