A new salvo has been fired in the ongoing Apple-Samsung war.
In a US District of California filing yesterday, Apple added the new Galaxy S4 smartphone to a list of 22 Samsung products the company claims infringe on its iOS patents, giving Apple more ammunition for next year's patent trial.
If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then these two should be happily married. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. Both are pointing the finger and this seems to be a showdown based in part on Samsung elbowing in on Apple's iPhone market and the coming change to Samsung's own operating systems.
Spencer Chen, senior director of business development at Appcelerator, says Apple is trying to protect its own profit margins and get Samsung products off the shelf. And even if they can make that happen for a short period, it could translate into huge dollars.
"Their mobile businesses are literally living or dying by quarterly earnings calls," Chen says. "It's probably worth it to Apple to proceed with this tactic given the speed and competitiveness of the handset market. Consumers won't care. They just want the best value given the choices they have in front of them at the time."
Chen says the other major reason this is important is Samsun's evolution, moving away from reliance on Android and syncing up products to better battle rival Apple.
"They (Samsung) are investing in their own mobile OS, Tizen, with other technology partners (e.g. Intel)," he says. "This is big because Samsung devices in the future will be truly vertically integrated a la Apple's products. Samsung will be able to completely control and monetize the entire stack: hardware, OS, software, and third party services."
The ironic part is that to add the S4 to the list Apple filed back in August of last year, they will have to eliminate one of the allegedly infringing devices from the suit. That's because there's only so many infringing devices Apple can name, as per Judge Lucy Koh's request.
Conversely, Samsung says Apple products, including its flagship products: the iPhone, iPad, Mac, iPod, and Apple TV, infringe on its patents. However, they have yet to add any new items to their list.
So why are they fighting? Both Apple and Samsung have hugely deep pockets, and Chen says this battle is as much for the rest of the market as it is for them. All this legal fighting is a degree of posturing, says Chen.
"Not only do they have the resources," he explains, "but both parties are establishing that they will exercise their rights in the legal system to protect their IP."
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