Going Against Apple: Samsung Aims for iPhone 5 Korean Ban
Australia and South Korea now share the same fate of witnessing the legal battle between Samsung and Apple. The dispute with patents is now something that has caught the ire and attention of the world. With their smartphone sales suffering, Samsung is filing a countersuit against Apple in Australia.
Samsung claims that Apple has infringed seven Australian patents, alleging this in the suit file in the Federal Court of Australia in New South Wales. These patents are all related to wireless networking. This could really sting because Apple’s next generation iPhones and iPad 2 devices all work with wireless technology. This also coincided with the delay of the launch of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia.
It should be noted that Apple has previously cried infringement with the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Last month, the two companies made a deal wherein Samsung would not only restrict sales of its latest smartphone, but also give some test units for Apple to scrutinize.
This latest move from Samsung will not only ignore its previous agreement with Apple, but will also affect the release of the iPhone 5 in South Korea. As if consumers weren’t already tormented enough, waiting for the iPhone to be released during the holidays, Samsung plans to file to ban the sales of the iPhone in South Korea.
The Korean Times reports that if the plan to ban pushes through, this would be a huge loss for Apple, considering that the country is majorly dependent on high technology and the Internet. The financial impact is too huge to be ignored. On the other side, Apple plans to sue Samsung in the country, claiming design copying and infringement.
Apple won in Germany, and was able to ban the Galaxy Tab 7.7 at Berlin’s IFA tech show. The Galaxy Tab 10.1 was also banned across Europe, but was later limited to just Germany. These things have a dangerous tendency of creating precedents wherein technology manufacturers would be more concern with legal dispute rather than producing efficient and useful devices for the consumers to enjoy. The future of patent law and technology can be easily affected by these things.
