Apple hires ethnic Korean lawyers in legal war vs. Samsung

Apple has hired ethnic Korean lawyers who can speak Korean en masse since filing yet another lawsuit against Samsung Electronics in the U.S. The nearly year-long patent war between the two tech giants has grown more intense since beginning in April last year.

According to foreign media reports Sunday, Apple filed a lawsuit with a district court in San Jose, California, saying Samsung failed to properly submit evidence. The American company had earlier sued for patent infringement on three models of Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones and Galaxy Tab 10.1.

The court ordered Samsung to submit the source codes of these products by Dec. 31 last year. Apple claims that it received source codes for just one of a number of versions of source codes for the products, saying Samsung just partially followed the court order. Apple also said Samsung should not be allowed to defend itself based on source codes that it has failed to submit. On this, Samsung said, “We are checking specific issues.”

Florian Müller, a German expert on patent law, said, “Apple recently hired 73 Korean-American lawyers and 20 Korean-American document reviewers,” adding, “The hiring was done to review mountains of Korean-language documents from the defendant Samsung.”

The law firms that hired the ethnic Korean lawyers are Morrison & Foerster and Wilmer Hale, who represent Apple in its lawsuits against Samsung in the U.S.

Apple’s hiring of Korean-fluent lawyers shows how seriously the company considers its lawsuits against Samsung. The action is also believed to have been taken to send Samsung the message that Apple can overcome the language barrier thanks to its deep pockets.

jaeyuna@donga.com