The Apple vs. Samsung saga doesn’t appear to be dying down any time soon, with both companies prepared, it would seem, to play the long game in a case which won’t be going on trial until 2014. Apple has said it would like to see both the Galaxy Note 10.1 and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean added to the California lawsuit versus its bitter Korean rival, insisting both products infringe upon its own intellectual property.
Android, of course, is a Google implementation, not Samsung’s, but as we’ve seen in the past, Apple doesn’t have too much of an issue in dragging the Big G’s mobile platform into its never-ending spat with Samsung. Specifics of just how the Galaxy Tab 10.1 exactly infringes Apple’s products (presumably the iPad) have yet to be revealed, although with Samsung having dragged the iPhone 5 into this particular case by naming it last month as an infringing device, it’s no surprise to see Tim Cook’s legal team react with the usual defiance.
The case is shaping up to be even bigger than the recent San Jose exhibition, in which Judge Lucy Koh eventually ruled that Samsung owed Apple over a billion dollars in total damages. Some might suggest the outcome of that case will have some bearing on 2014’s proceedings, yet while San Jose is arguably the biggest scalp either company has managed to take from the other, many of Apple’s claims have been thrown out by other juries in various different locations across the world.
With quite a long way to go until 2014, I wouldn’t be surprised – in fact, I would bet strongly in favor – that both Samsung and Apple will look to name every mobile product released by the other between now and when the trial actually begins – just to increase leverage.
Having commentated on this fracas since it began, I always had Apple down as the aggressor. While this is still somewhat true, Samsung has gritted its teeth and countered with a few heavy punches of its own. While most appear to have been in retaliation, the LCD manufacturer will have been buoyed to read Apple’s “apology” earlier this week in various UK publications, which clarified that Samsung had not copied Apple’s iPad in designing any Galaxy tablets, so we shall have to wait and see how messy this one gets.
(via Bloomberg)
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