The patent wars between Apple and Google are only heating up. On Tuesday, Apple filed a motion – in its second California litigation against Samsung – that could ban the sale of the Galaxy S III in the United States. Basically, they tossed the Galaxy S III in the same motion to ban the Galaxy Nexus in the US. But why? Because of infringements pertaining to Apple’s infamous voice command sassy butler Siri.
Apple isn’t too satisfied about some of the fairly blatant similarities between Samsung’s own proprietary S Voice interface and Siri, and this could cause some serious inconvenience for the people behind the roughly nine million or so rumored pre-orders of the Galaxy S III. More specifically, Apple claims that Samsung’s latest flagship Android phone violates two patents held by the company; one a unified search patent in regards to Siri, and the other a data-tapping patent that is also being used against HTC in a request for an immediate import ban of 29 infringing devices.
So, if the Galaxy S III isn’t on sale yet in the United States, where did Apple purchase the hardware that they put under the legal microscope? They purchased it from the United Kingdom, where the phone went on sale back in May 29.
Samsung replied to Apple’s motion on Wednesday afternoon claiming that it’s too late to add to the record for the Nexus motion that was filed back in February. Here is the statement that they released:
"If Apple wishes to seek an injunction against the Galaxy S III, the Court should require Apple to file a new motion and allow the parties to develop a full factual record on all four factors. Accordingly, the Court should reject Apple’s motion to amend its current notice of motion for a preliminary injunction."
Samsung claims that Apple’s allegations will have no impact on the already pre-ordered devices. If the nine million pre-order rumor holds true, that would mean that quite a fair bit of people would be disappointed if Apple succeeds. Funnily enough, Samsung had claimed that the Galaxy S III wasn’t designed by lawyers; it’s starting to appear as though this was a mistake. Nevertheless, it should be interesting to see how they hash this one out in court.
(via FOSSPatents)
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