Has Samsung Found a Silver Bullet in its War Against Apple?

Apple and Samsung have been at each other’s throats recently, fighting it out in numerous countries including Germany, Australia, Netherlands and the US. While the courtroom battles are ugly and analysts are already pondering the wider effects of this battle on the competition between iOS and Android devices, no one can deny that so far Apple has had the legal advantage. It has successfully prevented the rival Galaxy Tab from going on sale in Germany, Netherlands and Australia. In addition, it is gearing up for more battles against Samsung, HTC and other Android makers. Samsung has not stayed quiet, in fact has already led the initiative to try to ban the sale of the iPhone in various countries including France and Italy. However, now it may seem like that it has found a silver bullet against Apple, according to a Gert Frølund, a Danish Professor.

Prof. Frølund claims that Apple’s so-called revolutionary antenna, which intelligently switches between two antennas to send and receive signals, infringes one of Samsung’s patents. He stated that he and his colleagues had developed the antenna back in 2007 and then sold the patent to Samsung. He further pointed out that it would be incredibly difficult for Apple to design such an antenna without infringing on another company’s patents. If this is true, then it could lead to some ugly courtroom drama and may even help Samsung prevent the sale of the iPhone 4S in certain countries (despite the fact that it is one of the major component suppliers of the iPhone), or it could use this as leverage to force Apple from backing away from key legal battles.

 For now, Samsung states that there is no way to know for sure if Apple has infringed its patents. It can only verify this once it dismantles the iPhone 4S and takes a good look at what’s under the hood. Unlike Samsung, which has multiple smart phones on the market right now, Apple depends more heavily on its annual iPhone, so if this allegation of patent infringement turns out to be true, the resulting drama could be very interesting not just for the two companies involved but for the wider iOS and Android communities as well.