A Dutch consumer association Consumentenbond, had argued that Samsung should update its phones for at least four years after they go on sale. Regular software updates can address security problems but older models do not typically receive all the latest updates. However, the court rejected the association's claims.

Samsung produces some of the world's best-selling mobile phones running Google's Android operating system. Google regularly produces software updates that address newly discovered security flaws, and offers these to phone manufacturers such as Samsung. It is often up to the phone manufacturer to distribute the update to its customers.

Consumentenbond said Samsung was not distributing updates in a "timely" manner. Samsung said it guaranteed consumers in The Netherlands would get software updates for two years after a handset first went on sale in the country.

The court ruled in Samsung's favour and said the claims made by Consumentenbond were "inadmissible" because they related to "future acts".

For example, if a severe issue was discovered in the future, Samsung might choose to update all its previous handsets. Equally, it may not be able to update the software due to the nature of the bug and the limitations of older phone hardware.

For that reason it is not possible to say how many Samsung phones would receive a software update if a critical software flaw were discovered in the future. Therefore the court decided it was not possible to order Samsung to update all phones for four years, without knowing what bugs may be discovered in the future.

Consumentenbond said the ruling was "disappointing".