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The German arm of Vodafone has obtained the order in a Hamburg court, where T-Mobile has the exclusive rights from Apple to sell the iPhone.

In the UK, O2 has the exclusive rights to sell the iPhone, and also sells only locked handsets.

"They served a temporary injunction on T-Mobile in Germany,

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but it doesn't apply to anywhere else," says a Vodafone spokesperson.

"Vodafone believe that they have breached local laws with a permanent SIM lock on a contract basis."

In Germany the regulatory environment is very different to the UK, and there may be a strong legal case to force T-Mobile to sell unlocked iPhones alongside locked handsets.

It's unlikely that such a claim could work in the UK however, and Vodafone has "no plans whatsoever" to attempt such a case.

"We're not asking them to stop selling iPhones. What we're asking for is that they sell unlocked phones," says a spokesperson.

T-Mobile was unavailable for comment at the time of writing.

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