Samsung Electronics threatens 2nd patent war with Apple

Samsung Electronics is set to sue Apple for a patent violation in Korea, the Korean company`s latest legal offensive against its American rival.

Samsung has filed similar suits against Apple in other countries such as France and Italy, and will sue the American IT giant over violation of its patents on standards of wide code division multiple access, or WCDMA, a 3G mobile technology, in other countries.

Despite the death of former Apple CEO Steve Jobs, chances are thus high that the two technology giants will step up their legal dispute over patents.

Since Apple filed suit against Samsung in April by claiming violation of a design patent, Samsung has been analyzing patents it registered in major foreign markets and singled out cases in which Apple apparently committed violations.

Major patents that Samsung has decided to raise issue with this time are mostly related to WCDMA standards.

This is not the first time for Samsung to sue Apple over WCDMA standards. Samsung`s suit to seek court injunctions to block Apple from selling the iPhone 4S in France and Italy is also about patent violations of data transmission, a WCDMA standard.

While preparing for its second round of lawsuits, Samsung plans to closely examine its core technology patents vis-a-vis WCDMA, which it has not used in its suits thus far, to mount pressure on Apple.

Samsung has selected leading law firms in the countries concerned as its legal counsel. In Korea, Lee & Ko is representing Samsung and also working on the suit the Korean company filed in April against Apple in Korea over the alleged violation of its telecom technology.

A Samsung source said, “Preparation has been completed,” adding, “All we need to do is to decide when, where and which Apple products we will file suits against."

Samsung is preparing to launch another legal offensive because it judges Apple did not start its attack over patents just to cut the price of its supplies to Apple or to secure market dominance through ordinary means.

Even while preparing to sue Apple, Samsung has been focusing on figuring out what Apple’s intent was because the latter had been Samsung’s largest buyer.

Samsung’s hard-line stance has been largely affected by the result of its analysis of the written complaint Apple used to file lawsuits abroad. Patents Apple claims Samsung violated include not only those that Apple developed on its own and secured through mergers and acquisitions due to its managerial needs, but also patents it bought “individually” to sue Samsung.

Apple in July took over Nortel Networks, which holds multiple patents for long term evolution, or LTE, the fourth-generation mobile technology, for 4.5 billion U.S. dollars, five times the market price. This led Samsung to believe that Apple filed its lawsuits in an attempt to monopolize the smartphone market.

Samsung believes it will eventually win the patent war against Apple, however. Many major international standards, including those of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute for mobile telecom technology, were techniques proposed by Samsung. Hence, Apple can hardly afford to dodge all of these patents when producing smart mobile devices.

According to sources familiar with Samsung affairs, Jobs personally attended several licensing negotiations with Samsung that started in summer last year. He did not go to the negotiating table from September last year, when Apple hinted at suing Samsung over design patent violations, but he is said to have effectively led the lawsuit.