For the past few years, Apple has been battling with other companies in a quest to maintain, and now regain, dominance in the smart phone industry, with many of these wars being waged through various lawsuits throughout the world. One of their main battles is with Samsung, the manufacturer which currently holds the coveted title of having the most smartphone sales in the world.
Apple has acknowledged the threat that Samsung is towards their continued success in the smart phone market, with numerous lawsuits going out from Apple’s lawyers all around the world trying to ban the sales of Samsung’s phones and tablets. Many news sources have acknowledged that Samsung is going to be threatening Apple even more in the future, and Apple is really preparing for that in many more ways.
First of all, they’ve made a push towards purchasing other companies hardware, as they’ve stopped purchasing Samsung’s flash drives, with the new iPhones supposedly going to use a lot less of Samsung’s parts. Also, with Apple planning to release a new “Apple TV” or iTV, many have speculated that they will be working with Sharp or LG, purchasing a factory from one of them to produce their TV screens and iPhone and iPad screens, instead of going with their previous main business partner, Samsung. Also, Apple has turned more hostile than ever in their suing war, with Samsung’s head of Global Marketing saying “We’ll be pursuing our rights for this in a more aggressive way from now on. We’ve been quite respectful and also passive in a way. However, we shouldn’t be… anymore,” and they have become more aggressive. They have sued Apple numerous times over many patent violations, with one of the cases trying to ban, or at the very least receive a portion of each iPhone and iPad sale on the basis of Apple using Samsung’s 3G technology. A lawsuit such as this would have effects that would carry over for many generations of Apple’s smart phones and tablets, with anything produced in the near future almost guaranteed to have 3G technology incorporated inside it. Should the ban go through, Apple could lose many sales in the Netherlands and possibly in all of the European Union, damaging one of the largest markets in the world. From Nu.ul, a source of news reporting on the indent: “Samsung requires an import, trading and sales ban for all iPhones and iPads that 3G technology. Samsung claims that prohibition not only for Apple, but also five private companies that distribute and sell the products.” Apple has responded back, suing Samsung on the basis of copying the look and feel of the iPhone and iPad, with many customers possibly being “swayed” to purchase one of the Samsung phones or tablets. This lawsuit went through, with Samsung being banned from selling any product that breaches this, which accounts for most of their products, in Australia. Even though Australia isn’t that big of a market, Samsung has caved and asked Apple to allow them to sell products, coming up with a deal that wasn’t released, but was said to be enticing, possibly giving Apple some of the profits of each sale.
There is hope for the normal consumer, with the dream of having the ability to not worry about these lawsuits coming closer than ever, with another recent incident showing that many others have also had enough of these frivolous cases being brought to court. Richard Posner, a US judge, recently threw one of Apple’s lawsuits against Google out of court, saying that what these companies are doing is exploiting intellectual property law by not using it to protect their products, but to attack other companies.