Andreas Udo de Haes

Samsung Electronics has hit Apple with four patent cases in district court in The Hague, Netherlands, demanding a sales ban and a retail recall of all Apple products that use 3G technology.

The first hearing in the case is scheduled for Monday. Samsung in The Netherlands is demanding a preliminary injunction against all mobile products of Apple "specifically iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad 1, and iPad 2."

After breaching the Dutch CA (Certification Authority) DigiNotar, Iranian hackers managed to sign forged certificates for the domains of spy agencies CIA, Mossad and MI6. Leading certification authorities like VeriSign and Thawte were also targeted, as were Iranian dissident sites.

The cyber attack on DigiNotar, a Dutch subsidiary of VASCO Data Security International Inc, is much more serious than previously thought. In July, hackers gained access to the network and infrastructure of several of DigiNotar's CAs. Once inside, they generated hundreds of forged certificates for third-party domains.

Apple has filed inaccurate evidence again in a case against Samsung, this time in the Netherlands, where the company is arguing Samsung's Galaxy S smartphones are too similar to its iPhone 3G.

Apple also has an ongoing case in Germany, part of a global intellectual property battle with Samsung in the mobile phone and tablet market.

In its case against Samsung Electronics in the Netherlands, Apple is demanding an extensive ban on all Galaxy series smartphones and tablets, including a complete recall of stock by European distributors and resellers.

Apple's complaint against Samsung in The Hague district court is much more comprehensive than previously thought. It's not only broader in its legal scope than a separate, ongoing Apple complaint against Samsung in Germany, but an injunction could have a "huge impact" on the entire European market for smartphones and tablets, according to Alastair Edwards, principal analyst at Canalys.

Screenshot of page 28 of Apple's complaint against Samsung in GermanyApple and its lawyers have, perhaps inadvertently, misled the judge of a Düsseldorf court by filing flawed evidence of the similarity between the iPad 2 and Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets based on an inaccurate picture, an investigation by Webwereld.nl, a Dutch IDG publication, has found.

Last week, the German court ordered a preliminary injunction against the distribution of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in all of Europe, except the Netherlands, where a separate and broader case is under way, in what has become a global war between Apple and Samsung for intellectual property rights on their products and technologies.

AMSTERDAM - Company data belonging to customers of Microsoft's hosted business suite BPOS has been accessed and downloaded by other users of the software.

The issue affected the Offline Address Book of customers of the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) Standard suite.