Samsung has said that expects to file a motion with a California court to include the iPhone 5 in its patent lawsuit litigation, but only after it has taken the opportunity to examine the device, which has not yet gone on general sale.
Samsung had been threatening legal action against Apple’s new iPhone 5 handset, even before it had been released, purely on the back of speculation it would support 4G LTE networks. However, in a filing submitted to the US District Court for the Northern District of California late Wednesday, the company confirmed it intends to file a motion and amend its legal proceedings to combat the Apple device, only once it has had “reasonable opportunity to analyze the device.”
The filing, which has found and documented by FOSSpatents’ Florian Mueller, states that the company anticipates it “will file, in the near future, a motion to amend its infringement contentions to add the iPhone 5 as an accused product.”
The move comes after Apple announced the smartphone would go on general sale in nine countries around the world on September 21 and will affect a lawsuit that is due to go to trial in March 2014.
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It’s important to bear in mind that Samsung hasn’t had the opportunity to actually examine the iPhone 5. It asserts its filing “based on the information currently available” and will file its amendments to cover the new device once it has had a chance to check it over and identify the technologies used in both its hardware and software.
Mueller states that Samsung believes that based on the information it already has, the iPhone 5 will infringe on the “eight patents that Samsung is already asserting in a California lawsuit against Apple, two of which have been declared standard-essential.”
Samsung believes it shouldn’t affect the case schedule, but has not moved to file a preliminary injunction on the device to ban imports and sales in the US.
Apple also took the chance to submit a filing of its own, which states that it will amend its proceedings to include the Galaxy Note 10.1 (having already added the Galaxy S III three weeks ago). More interestingly, Apple also notes that Google’s “Android 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system” will also become one of the accused technologies.
Google has long defended its Android operating system, stating that Samsung and other smartphone vendors have made their own modifications to the OS and the core platform is not affected. With Apple adding the OS to its list of accused technologies, Google may find itself having to back up those claims.
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