Samsung is hoping to score some sort of victory against Apple and this time it has taken the fight to Korean courtrooms. It is already pretty well established that Apple and Samsung have been battling it out for supremacy and currently Samsung’s Galaxy S2 and Apple’s iPhone 4S are the chief rivals of the smart phone industry. Another area of friction between the two is the tablet PC market, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab is trying to grab market share from Apple’s iPad 2. However, the twist in this saga is that Apple and Samsung have a deep relationship and Apple is one of Samsung’s biggest clients, while the latter is Apple’s biggest component supplier, (Apple designs the iPhone and then sub-contracts the production).
The war between these two tech rivals/partners was sparked when Apple accused Samsung of “slavishly copying” key design features and infringing its patents while producing the Samsung Galaxy Tab and Galaxy S2. Samsung has also fired back at Apple accusing it of infringing some of it’s patents and sought to impose injunctions on the iPhone 4S in France, Italy, Australia and the Netherlands. So far, Apple has won the majority of the legal battles and successfully blocked Samsung from selling its latest products in Germany, Netherlands and Australia. More courtroom drama is expected in various countries including the US and a variety of European countries.
Obviously attacking Apple in South Korea means that Samsung can depend on home ground advantage. However, the company has taken care to emphasize the importance of its wider relationship with Apple. The iPhone is quite popular in South Korea so even if Samsung succeeds it could end up being portrayed as the villain because Apple spin machines have been working wonders at the PR side of things. Now that the battle is intensifying, many are wondering where it would ultimately lead. Many think that ultimately Samsung and Apple will come to an amicable agreement that might almost certainly be in Apple’s favour.
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