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Apple vs. Samsung. Round 2. Fight!

It’s been less than two years since the first massive courtroom battle between Apple and Samsung over patent infringement which resulted in a $1 billion (reduced to around $930 million eventually) fine for the South Korean electronics giant. This week will see the return of the two companies to court for a second battle over a new batch of products, only this time Samsung is also on the offensive.

Apple is claiming that Samsung’s Galaxy range of smartphones and tablets has infringed on five patents held by the California-based maker of iDevices, including the ‘Slide to Unlock’ patent which Apple holds. Samsung, on the other hand, is claiming that Apple breached two of its patents in both the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch as well as in its MacBook Pro notebooks with the most valuable of them being a patent for increasing the speed of wireless data transfer.

Apple, for its part, is looking for $40 (around R425) for every Samsung device sold that infringes on its patents, which would result in a mammoth $2 billion payout from Samsung should it lose. Should Apple lose its defence against the two patents that Samsung is alleging wrong doing over it would only be in line for an estimated $6 million in damages.

Many industry observers and patent experts think that Apple has overstepped its mark by asking for such a high fee with German patent analyst Florian Mueller going so far as to tell the Associated Press that it is “far above a reasonable level (and that) the judge should not have allowed it.”

Whatever the result of the new court case turns out to be, the impact on the industry at large will be felt for years to come, much in the same way that Samsung is still appealing the first case more than two years after the fact.

[Source: AP, Image: Shutterstock]

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