JURIST - Paper Chase: Apple adds products to Samsung patent infringement suit

[JURIST] Apple [corporate website] filed a motion on Friday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] requesting permission to add six additional products to its patent infringement claim against Samsung Electronics [corporate website]. According to court documents, Apple seeks to supplement its claim [Bloomberg report] with newer Samsung products brought to market after the original lawsuit was filed in February. These include the Galaxy SIII, Galaxy Note and several tablet and smart-phone designs that run on the Android Jelly Bean and Ice-Cream Sandwich operating systems. The motion elaborates: "Apple has acted quickly and diligently to determine that these newly released products do infringe many of the same claims already asserted by Apple, and in the same way that the already-accused devices infringe." Apple's request comes after a judge ruled [JURIST report] earlier in November that each company would be allowed to pursue additional patent infringement claims against the other, including Samsung's claim that Apple's recently released iPhone 5 violates it patents. The lawsuit is one of two pending patent infringement cases [case materials] between the companies and is currently scheduled for trial in 2014.

Apple's motion is the most recent event in a protracted patent litigation battle [JURIST op-ed] with Samsung that spans over four continents. Last month a judge for the US International Trade Commission [official website] issued a preliminary ruling [JURIST report] that Samsung infringed four of Apple's patents relating to smartphone design and touchscreen technology. In October the Dutch Rechtbank's-Gravenhage [official website, in Dutch] court ruled that Samsung did not infringe [JURIST report] on an Apple software patent. In the same month a UK court also ruled that Samsung did not infringe [JURIST report] on an Apple design patent. Also in October, Apple defeated [JURIST report] patent infringement claims made by Samsung in Japan, overcoming Samsung's attempt to enjoin iPhone sales in the country. At the beginning of October, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed an injunction [JURIST report] against Samsung that prevented it from selling its Galaxy Nexus product. Earlier in August, Apple won a $1.05 billion judgment [JURIST report] in the Northern District of California against Samsung involving other patent infringements.