In the most recent development in the legal scuffles between Apple and Samsung, Apple filed a court request to include a few more of Samsung’s devices, including its highly anticipated Galaxy Note 2 and the Galaxy S3 Mini, in the Californian patent infringement dispute scheduled for trial in 2014.
After Samsung requested Apple’s fourth generation iPad, the iPad Mini, and its fifth generation iPod Touch to be included in the case, Apple retaliated by adding Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2, Galaxy S3 Mini and Galaxy S III with Android 4.1 to its own list of devices to be included in the case, sparking heavy friction between the two companies. Prior to this recent change in events, the list of gadgets in question consisted of Apple’s iPhone, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 10.1, Galaxy Nexus with Android 4.1 and the US model of the Galaxy S III, which did not run Android 4.1 at the time of release.
Earlier last year, Apple had sued Samsung claiming that it had copied the design of the iPhone and the iPad with its Galaxy line up of devices, instigating Samsung to counter sue. Come August 2012, Apple finally won the California case against Samsung regarding infringed patents on hardware design and, along with losing patent claims, Samsung had to pay Apple about $1.05 billion in damages. The infringement of six patents was with regard to copied designs in devices like the Samsung Epic 4G, Captivate, Galaxy S II, Indulge and the Vibrant.
Samsung has sought to have the court decision upturned so as to have a retrial. The monetary blow to the South Korean company has heightened tensions between the two major leaders of the smartphone industry. While the court case was centralized on design specifications, the current case deals with similarities in software features. Since Samsung incorporates Google’s Android operating system in a large number of its devices, the more pertinent question, in this mutual lashing and backlashing of patent infringement claims, is whether Google will find itself getting roped into the middle of Samsung and Apple’s legal disputes.
The case is currently being overseen by US Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal in a federal court in San Jose, California. Samsung has made it expressly clear that it has no intentions of negotiating a deal with Apple, as HTC did recently when Apple sued it for a similar patent infringement case, and many are waiting to see what the final outcome will be once the dust finally settles.
