Apple and Samsung are not only fighting for market share in the mobile, tablet and computer business by launching new devices, they’re also suing each other on multiple continents for alleged design and/or patent infringements.
There are over 20 lawsuits between the two, and that number is growing steadily. In fact just earlier today we heard that the South Korean company countersued Apple in The Netherlands, a country where Apple has already obtained a significant preliminary victory against Samsung products a few weeks ago.
Without going through the full who-sued-where history I’ll briefly summarize it for you, Apple started it all back in April when it accused Samsung of copying its iPhone and iPad designs with its flagship Android smartphones and tablets. Samsung quickly responded by claiming that Apple is infringing on various wireless communication patents, and from there on the two have started filing lawsuit after lawsuit in various countries like South Korea, Japan, France, Italy, Germany, The Netherlands, UK, and, of course, the USA. So far Apple is winning as it has obtained various preliminary injunctions against well known Samsung products.
What’s interesting is that earlier today Samsung decided to clarify its position against Apple. Samsung will take a more active role in enforcing its patents, which probably translates into more lawsuits against Cupertino since it believes that Apple has been really using Samsung patents unjustly.
What’s even more interesting is that a Samsung store has a wall filled with icon apps including Apple original apps. You can easily see the icons of Apple’s Safari app and no less than three App Store app icons. These kind of icons are very specific for the iOS environment and since they’re native Apple apps they also happen to be unique. So what are they doing on that wall of apps? Is Samsung copying Apple design elements? Because I’m more than sure that Apple would never create such apps for Samsung Android or bada phones.
Oh and what’s also kind of ironic is that the Samsung Ace advertised on that display is one of the three Galaxy smartphones banned from selling by the Dutch court.
The store pictured above has been found in Italy but I’d be curious to see whether other Samsung stores have similar apps displayed on the walls. I’d be also interested to hear how Samsung will explain this, because, at the end of the day, how can they call Apple out for copying stuff when it’s Samsung that appears to do most of the copying? Who is the bigger copyist?
