[JURIST] Samsung [corporate website] announced Thursday that it will add the iPhone5 [Apple backgrounder] to its ongoing patent infringement lawsuit against Apple [corporate website]. Samsung filed a document [Reuters report] in the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] alleging that it anticipates that the iPhone 5, like its predecessor, the iPhone 4S, will infringe on Samsung’s flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S III [Samsung backgrounder]. In the filing, Samsung indicated that it would first need to analyze the iPhone5 before determining whether or not the device infringed on one of its patents. The case is scheduled for trial in 2014.
Apple and Samsung have been embroiled in continuous patent litigation in courts around the world. Earlier this week a judge for the US International Trade Commission (ITC) [official website] ruled [JURIST report] that Apple products do not infringe on Samsung’s patents. In August Apple won a $1.05 billion judgment [JURIST report] against Samsung in a separate case [case materials] in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. The suit covered everything from the shape and design of the competing companies’ tablets and smartphones to the technology employed in the devices’ software interface. Following the jury award Apple moved to block [JURIST report] eight Samsung products from being produced and sold in the US. Last month a South Korean court found that Apple and Samsung had violated each others’ patents [JURIST report] and banned the sales of some of the companies’ products in the country. In July a UK court ruled [JURIST report] that Samsung tablets do not infringe on Apple’s design.