According to a report in the Korea Times, a Samsung senior executive is quoted as saying that, as soon as the iPhone 5 is released in Korea, his firm will file a lawsuit charging Apple with violating Samsung's patents on wireless technologies. It will, he told the paper, be impossible to sell i-branded products without using Samsung patents.
The Newsfactor newswire, meanwhile, reported that there are now a total of 19 patent lawsuits between the two firms, in 12 courts in nine countries. In addition to the US, Germany, and Australia, the newswire said that patent-based lawsuits against Apple are pending in the UK, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan and South Korea.
Apple, added the newswire, has also filed patent lawsuits against HTC, Motorola Mobility and others.
And it seems that the whole tablet and smartphone landscape is turning into a sea of lawsuits, as Newsfactor reported that Apple has recently secured an injunction against Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet being sold in Germany, and its Galaxy Tab 7.7 was subsequently removed from sale in that country when Apple tried to have the device covered by the same order.
A comparable legal war, the newswire noted, is also under way in Australia between the two companies, where both companies have filed suit.
Apple, meanwhile, has now won an injunction throughout the European Union against the Galaxy S, Galaxy SII, and Ace smartphones, after a judge in The Hague ruled that the Android products/services-based smartphones violated Apple's software patent for a "portable electronic device for photo management."
“The ruling, however, does not affect Samsung's tablets, nor does it validate Apple's claim of copyright and design violations”, noted the wire.
And even if the iPhone 5 is released on October 15 in the US, as widely expected, the Electronista newswire notes that T-Mobile USA users will have to wait until next year before their carrier releases a native iPhone 5.