Koreans are upping its patents war on arch enemy, declaring there will be no shifting on its war with Apple.
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This latest battle cry was declared by Samsung’s head of telecommunications, Shin Jong-kyun, who warned there will be “no compromise” on the patents war it is currently waging with Apple.
He told The Korea Times Wednesday after a meeting with senior company officials, where the dispute with iPhone maker was clearly top of the agenda.
This comes after Samsung commenced a fresh legal fight with Cupertino in its native Korea, filing several new complaints on Tuesday, accusing Apple of violating its tablet and smartphone patents on iPad 2 and iPhone 4S, which is has already attempted to ban the sale of in Europe and Australia.
Reports this week suggest Apple offered an olive branch to Samsung, whom are now engaged in messy legal battles in courts across the world including US and Australia, offering a cross licensing deal to Samsung in a bid to end the nasty dispute.
The deal would have seen Samsung fork out $5-$15 to Apple for every Android device sold.
However, Samsung are thought to have refused the deal point blank.
And the Korean giant has also put a whopping $60 million extra into its legal kitty meaning it is willing to go the wall in its fight with Cupertino – an increase from the $200m assigned for legal costs last year. But Apple, too, has a massive kitty of cash and lets not forget is the most valuable tech company in the world.
But Samsung has no reason to be over confident having lost more cases than it has won against the iPad maker, although did enjoy a win here in Australia, allowing it to sell its Android Galaxy Tab 10.1 before Christmas.
Apple kicked off the patents war back in 2010, accusing Samsung of “slavishly” copying its iPhone and iPad touch, scroll and other technology on its Galaxy smartphone and Tabs. The Koreans subsequently retailiated accusing Apple of nicking its 3G wireless technology without license and sought to ban iPhone and iPad devices from sale globally.
But it appears, the Galaxy maker may have breached its requirement to license its essential wireless patents to rivals in fair and reasonable terms (FRAND), is now being called into question with the European regulators, who are examining its competitive practices.
Apple claim it did not need to pay licencing fees for 3G technology to Samsung due to its commercial relationship with chip maker Qualcomm, who pay license fees to Samsung.
But last month Apple upped the ante even further claiming the Korean’s are infringing upon its technology patents on thirteen phones including flagship Galaxy Nexus, two music players and two tablets.
It is also seeking to ban the sale of its flagship Google Nexus running Android’s new Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, claiming the smartphone infringes upon four of its intellectual patents used on iPhone including Siri and auto spell technology.
Read: Its War, Samsung: Apple Attacks 17 Androids Here
Apple and Samsung are embroiled in over 20 seperate legal battle globally including US, Korea and much of the Euro Zone including Germany, Britain, France and Italy.
And it looks like there’s plenty more to come.
Stay tuned.
