Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal is allowing Samsung to add the
iPhone 5 and other new Apple (NASDAQ:
AAPL
) products to its patent lawsuit. This lawsuit is separate from
the summer patent trial that resulted in a
$1 billion verdict
for Apple, which may be
thrown out
due to jury misconduct.
According to
Computerworld
, Apple filed the latest suit in February. The Cupertino,
California-based tech giant alleged that select Samsung products
(including the Galaxy Nexus and other smartphones, tablets and
media players) infringed on eight of Apple's patents. Samsung
denied that its products infringed on Apple's patents and filed a
complaint of its own, claiming that the iPhone and iPad infringe
on eight Samsung patents.
Judge Grewal has now given both companies the chance to add
new products to their complaints. Samsung is free to add the iPad
4 and iPad Mini, as well as the iPhone 5. Apple can include the
U.S. version of the Galaxy S III, the Galaxy Note 10.1 and other
recently released Samsung products. Jelly Bean, the mobile
operating system developed by Google (NASDAQ:
GOOG
), can also be included in the suit. Its inclusion will be
limited to the Galaxy Nexus, however.
"The court will not permit a sweeping amendment that might
apply to devices other than those properly tied to Samsung,"
Judge Grewal said in his order.
Apple and Samsung have until November 23 to amend their
complaints.
Future Lawsuits
By allowing Apple and Samsung to include newer products in
this lawsuit, Judge Grewal has reduced the likelihood that they
will appear in a separate domestic patent dispute. While both
firms will continue to release new products (which could lead to
additional lawsuits), there might be one less court battle to
endure in 2013. That is good news for the two tech titans, both
of which spend millions in annual legal fees.
Unfortunately, this particular lawsuit only involves the
release of products in the United States. Elsewhere in the world,
Apple and Samsung have a large number of separate lawsuits. One
of them led to a
humiliating court instruction
from a United Kingdom judge who said that Apple should publish a
notice on its website to "correct any impression the South
Korea-based company was copying Apple's product."
When that instruction became an order on October 18, Apple
complied and posted the notice. The Mac maker also attempted to
defend itself by mentioning a more favorable verdict from a
German court. This
angered U.K. judges
, who ordered Apple to re-write the statement in 48 hours.
Apple has since published a
new statement
on
Apple.com/UK
, as well as a notice clarifying the mistake. "On 25 October
2012, Apple Inc. published a statement on its UK website in
relation to Samsung's Galaxy tablet computers. That statement was
inaccurate and did not comply with the order of the Court of
Appeal of England and Wales."
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