The Apple-Samsung drama has been rather quiet in Australia compared to the clamor it’s created in Europe until today when Apple alleged that the Australian version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is also infringing Apple patents. Samsung had originally tried to circumvent the Australian GalTab injunction on the basis that it was the version intended for the U.S., and that the Australian variant was different.

Samsung, Apple, the court, and the rest of us all knew that this was simply a hail-Mary style prayer that the Australian version would somehow be varied enough from the U.S. version to slide past infringement territory. But… c’mon. A Galaxy Tab 10.1 is a Galaxy Tab 10.1 and that’s exactly how Apple felt. The amount and type of infringement claims Apple will make are as yet unknown since the company just got their hands on the Australian variants on Thursday of last week. But according to the Sydney Morning Herald, Apple’s lawyers contended that the Australian GalTab does have “some reduced functionality,” but it “will still infringe.”

And if that weren’t enough, Samsung says it will file its own Australian patent infringement suit against Apple’s iPad. Which is pretty awful news considering that these two have basically taken their fight across the U.S., Europe and Australia, leaving a wake of dissatisfied customers and rich lawyers in their trail. But that’s an entirely different lawsuit on an entirely different day, and there’s really no telling which patents Samsung will throw out to make a dent in its foe’s armor.

What matters now is Apple’s complaint, which is keeping Australians from the GalTab 10.1 party. The slate was originally scheduled to launch August 11, or at least that was the date for Samsung’s media event. Apple ruined that fun claiming that the U.S. version was infringing its patents concerned with “look and feel” and touchscreen technology, and asked the court to block the GalTab until a formal decision had been reached.

When Samsung responded by saying it had an Australian GalTab in the works, Apple agreed to inspect three models of said GalTab to determine whether infringement was still an issue. Clearly, it’s still an issue, and so Apple asked the court to not only re-affirm its injunction on the U.S. version, but to prevent Samsung from selling the Australian version as well.

Samsung initially argued this, as the company had planned to begin selling the device on September 12. Eventually they came to their senses once Justice Annabelle Bennett reiterated that there may not be very much logic in launching only to have the slate pulled off shelves in a couple weeks. Samsung’s counsel then decided to hold off on the launch until after September 30.

On Friday, Apple will go into detail on each of the patents Samsung is allegedly infringing, and on September 5 the company will release a more in-depth statement of the facts. Once Samsung has had the chance to rebut, the formal hearing will take place September 26 and 29.

Justice Annabelle Bennet, though she owns an iPad, said she may need help in determining the actual claims of the patents and how they relate to each tablet. And we don’t blame her. Have you ever read through a patent? Not easy. In the meantime, Samsung will be preparing its counter-argument, which will likely include clips and images from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Samsung has cited the tablets within the film as “prior art” for the tablet design in its U.S. lawsuit, which could effectively get Samsung off the hook.

And we honestly hope it does. Not because we’re on Samsung’s side, or Apple’s for that matter, but because we’re really just ready for this mess to be over. The brawl has lasted about four months, spread across three continents, and it doesn’t look like it’s slowing down at all. In the end, Apple and Samsung will survive. It’s the innocent consumers who are losing big.

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Hope you’ve got some popcorn and a German law book at the ready because this back-and-forth between Apple and Samsung only gets better and better. Today, the preliminary injunction banning Samsung from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the EU has been partially lifted. Now before you jump to the same conclusions I did, let me say that this suspension has nothing to do with the false evidence discovered yesterday within Apple’s complaint. At least, that’s not the reason the Dusseldorf regional court gave for the lift.

Instead, a court spokesman said that questions arose over whether or not a German court has the right to ban a company based in South Korea from selling its product throughout the European Union, reports the Wall Street Journal. The injunction suspension is only in effect until the August 25 appeal hearing, during which Samsung will present its argument to reverse the original ruling. Unfortunately, things won’t change much for German customers — the ban is still underway within Germany. The rest of Europe will be able to grab a GalTab as long as it comes through the Korean parent company, but Samsung’s German unit will still be banned from selling the device throughout the EU.

According to FOSS Patents, patent infringement cases must be handled by each individual European nation, whereas there are intellectual property rights and trademarks that can be issued by an agency of the European Union. Those IP rights can then be enforced across the entirety of the EU, as is the case with Apple. Apple’s original complaint was based on its own intellectual property right, Community Design 003781832, which you can find after the break.

The German court system tends to lean more on the side of the right holder than the alleged infringer, so Apple already knew it had a pretty good chance of winning the injunction. Because its complaint was based on an IP right granted by an EU agency (rather than a patent issued by a national patent office), Apple also knew that the injunction would reach beyond Germany to the whole of the EU. In fact, the company only excluded the Netherlands because it has an even broader case to present there in mid-September.