­A court in the Netherlands has ruled that Samsung did not infringe an Apple patent that covers some multi-touch functions found on Samsung's Galaxy smartphones and tablets.

In a ruling, the court said that as far as the products cited in the case by Apple, there was no infringement of the claims Apple had made.

The patent covers the "pinch-to-zoom" function found on many smartphones, but is specific to how it manages unexpected noise from other parts of the screen when a user is touching the two nodes they want to zoom on.

The court found that while superficially to an end user the process is the same - the underlying technology was sufficiently different to say Samsung did not infringe Apple's patent.

The court also noted that its ruling of non-infringement is substantively similar to decisions already handed down by courts in the UK and Germany, where the two companies are still fighting a number of other patent cases.

Apple has been ordered to pay Samsung's legal costs.

The court ruling is significant as both companies use the country as a major distribution location for the rest of Europe, and a court order can cause companies to have to swiftly shift their logistics facilities to another country.