The On-Going Samsung vs Apple Deathmatch

All right, the two corporations are not, in fact, stripped to the waist and slugging it out in a Mad Max style duel, though that would certainly be entertaining. They have been at it again recently though, with the latest round in their no-holds-barred legal battle. Apple and Samsung have been at each others throats in the courtrooms as well as the consumer electronics showrooms since April 2011.
Apple has something of a history of vigorously defending what it perceives as its intellectual property, to the point at which it argued last year in a patent infringement case against HTC that a former Apple engineer might have been “inspired”, while working at Apple, and somehow used that inspiration in the creation of HTC devices. Motorola and Apple also sued each other last year. It’s not for us to decide whether Apple have a right to restrict which other companies can make smartphones, or more accurately, how iPhone-like those other smartphones are allowed to be. The courts will decide those things.
This year’s spat with Samsung is definitely getting ugly, hence the deathmatch analogy. Samsung supplies Apple with components for its products, but Apple thinks Samsung’s own tablets and smartphones are too close to iPads and iPhones. Not just too close for comfort, but too close for the law to allow – Apple has claimed in several countries that Samsung’s designs infringe in Apple’s intellectual property, notably its patents (these will usually be specific design or engineering choices, such as the way a touchscreen responds to the user) and its trademarks and trade dress (basically the look and feel of the products involved).


This resulted in the Galaxy Tab 10.1 being banned across Europe in August, but the ban was eventually restricted to just Germany. A similar, ongoing case in the USA also names several of Samsung’s smartphones, though, potentially leading to phones being taken off the shelves if the case is found in Apple’s favour. Some Galaxy phones such as the Galaxy SII have also been removed from sale in the Netherlands.
Samsung has counter-sued Apple, claiming various patent infringements, in Japan, Korea, and Germany, and more recently, just after the iPhone 4S was released, in France and Italy. Whether Samsung thinks it can win or not, it is likely to do some damage to iPhone sales, even if it only gets a temporary injunction while the court case is in progress.
The latest round in the battles sees Apple successful in upholding another Galaxy Tab 10.1 ban, this time in Australia. Samsung do not seem too confident of reversing the decision any time soon, and are believed to be considering making changes to the 10.1. However, they have now sought an injunction against sales of the iPhone 4S in Australia and are also trying to gain access to the iOS 5 source code.
What is at stake here is the very future of smartphones. At one extreme, a clear victory by Apple could make other companies very wary of launching products that are even similar to the iPhone, for fear of a lawsuit. That could strangle competition, giving the iPhone even more of a solid lead in the smartphone market than it already has, because so many of the iPhone’s features are regarded as central to the smartphone experience. At the other extreme, a clear victory for Samsung could lead to a dilution of difference in the market, with new manufacturers simply churning out iPhone copies under different names. We can perhaps hope for a middle ground, of compromises from Samsung and acceptance of those compromises from Apple. Even changing the look of the Samsung devices so they no longer even faintly resemble Apple’s distinctive look may be enough.

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