Yesterday, as you have already been exhaustively told, Apple announced the long-awaited iPhone 5. The device is packed full of new hardware and software, most of which everyone was already expecting. One particular feature, however, is of keen interest to Samsung and their hopes for patent revenge against Apple.
Is the iPhone 5 going to land Apple right back in court against Samsung? If so, what hope does Samsung have to put the brakes on the new device before it even hits the shelves next week?
Samsung vs. Apple
This situation is all about the speed. Apple wanted the iPhone 5 to have 4G LTE capabilities and Samsung holds LTE patents. Oh, and Samsung is feeling a little salty after being told they owe Apple $1-3 billion for patent infringement.
We talked about how this legal move by Samsung was likely, and why they would probably not be able to do anything to block the sale of the new device. According to the Korea Times, however, Samsung is convinced their patents have more teeth than that, and the company is moving forward with the lawsuit anyway.
On Monday, an insider source stated, ?It?s true that Samsung Electronics has decided to take immediate legal action against the Cupertino-based Apple. Countries in Europe and even the United States ? Apple?s home-turf ? are our primary targets.?
Samsung?s Galaxy S3 is selling remarkably well, moving over 20 million devices in just the first 100 days. Having LTE capability is big part of that success, and it is a feature that Apple needed to deliver on the iPhone 5. Cupertino, knowing this was going to trigger more legal action, launched the new iPhone with LTE capability. Since?Samsung has a claim on 12.2% of the LTE patents, Apple is going to have to come to terms with that, one way or another.
Maybe they won?t care about the LTE thing?
Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents believes the patents held by Samsung will not be able to block the sale of the iPhone 5, but that Apple will have to negotiate and pay licensing fees to use them. This is normal practice for standard essential patents, with companies in this industry agreeing beforhand to license patents to each other as needed, and at fair and reasonable rates.
Another insider source quoted by the Korea Times, however, believes that these LTE patents held by Samsung are not standard essential patents at all, that ?the story is totally different when you talk about LTE patents. These are new and highly-valued,? and that if Samsung is successful, the iPhone 5 launch could be disrupted. Which would be really frustrating to Cupertino?s business plan, we are sure.
We?ll be keeping an eye on this situation, except for when we are scrambling online to pre-order the iPhone 5 tomorrow.
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Adrian writes the weekly?Law Apple?column and the occasional feature story for MacLife.com. Follow him on?Twitter, or subscribe to him on?Facebook.
Article source: http://www.maclife.com/article/columns/law_apple_and_now_samsung_threatens_iphone_5
Source: http://quickiphoneapps.com/law-apple-and-now-samsung-threatens-the-iphone-5/
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