Apple Inc has
filed a lawsuit in South Korea, claiming Samsung Electronics Co Ltd
infringed upon several patents, a court official said on Friday, in the
companies’ latest legal tussle over smartphone and tablet devices.
The litigation comes as Samsung
filed patent suits in South Korea, Japan and Germany in April over the
US company’s iPhone and iPad after Apple claimed Samsung’s Galaxy line
“slavishly” copied its products.
Global
technology companies are locked in a web of litigation as they try to
defend their shares of the booming tablet and smartphone market.
Last
week, a lawyer for Apple said in a US court that executives “at the
highest levels” of both companies are in talks about patent litigation.
This
was after the judge referenced the close business relationship between
the two companies to resolve the case through alternative dispute
resolution outside the court.
Apple,
which was Samsung’s second-biggest client after Japan’s Sony Corp last
year, became the South Korean firm’s biggest customer in the first
quarter, mainly by purchasing semiconductors, according to Samsung’s
quarterly report.
Samsung is one of
the fastest growing smartphone makers on the back of a boom in Android
operating system and has emerged as Apple’s strongest competitor in the
tablet market.
A spokesman for Apple Korea declined to comment on the patent law suit and reiterated the company’s previous stance.
“It
is no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the
iPhone and iPad from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and
even the packaging,” the spokesman said.
In the previous filing against Apple, Samsung said it was seeking compensation for patent infringements.
Samsung shares closed up 2.5 percent ahead of news of the law suit.
Follow us on
