Returning the favour
In the world of corporate litigation it's generally accepted that if someone sues you, you sue them back with interest. The presumed expectation is that the two suits will end up cancelling each other out, but not before the lawyers get new cars, houses and golf club memberships.
Not wanting to fly in the face of convention, Samsung has wasted little time in responding to Apple's claim that it has copied the design on its mobile devices with some lawsuits of its own, according to Korean news agency Yonhap.
So far Samsung has initiated legal action in South Korea, Japan and Germany, but is in the process of preparing a case for filing in the US too. Apparently Apple violates ten Samsung patents in producing the iPhone and iPad - mainly concerned with data transmission and power control - that up until now Samsung had apparently been happy to overlook.
"Samsung is responding actively to the legal action taken against us in order to protect our intellectual property and to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communications business," said a Samsung statement.
While we've no doubt that Apple considered the implications of suing Samsung long and hard before initiating legal action, it may well have catalysed an unprecedented level of hostility and aggression from one of the few other companies in the world that can match Apple in terms of financial, engineering and product development muscle.
While the likes of HTC are also major rivals to Apple in the mobile device space, Samsung has to be considered the biggest. It's also a major manufacturing partner and component supplier for Apple, so the potential ramifications of declaring war on it are big.
The Yonhap story explores how Samsung, which has historically been very careful not to antagonise Apple, is now starting to publicly defend itself more stridently. It also detailed some conciliatory remarks from Apple's Tim Cook in its recent earnings conference call, and suggested the two companies are likely to settle their differences out of court.
But the nature of Apple's complaint - that Samsung has copied its designs in general, as opposed to infringing on specific technology patents - means it's hard to see how this can be resolved without Samsung radically changing the design of its mobile devices. Something it's presumably reluctant to do.
