“Today the Mannheim Regional Court held two hearings involving Apple and Samsung,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents. “In the first one, Apple was the defendant; in the second one, Samsung faced a lawsuit from Apple over a rather famous (slide-to-unlock) patent.”
“But the most interesting parts came up right at the beginning of the session,” Mueller reports. “With the help of two additional law firms, Samsung is now suing Apple over four more patents in Mannheim, in addition to three that were already asserted in April. Apple, for its part, is suing Samsung over six patents in Mannheim. One of [Samsung’s patents] is, ironically, a smiley input patent [“emoticon input method for mobile terminal”]. The four new patents include two FRAND patents and two unencumbered patents. The smiley patent is part of the latter group.”
In addition, Mueller reports, “Samsung is backtracking with respect to Apple products containing Qualcomm baseband chips, which at this stage means the iPhone 4S… This is a defensive move no matter how you look at it, and most likely it’s due to the setback Samsung suffered in France last week, where a motion for a preliminary injunction against the iPhone 4S was denied because the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris held that Apple’s use of Qualcomm baseband chips eliminated the need for a separate license from Samsung. Samsung can still bring 3G patent assertions against the iPhone 4S. It hasn’t waived that right. But if it thought it had a strong case in that regard, today’s backtracking wouldn’t make sense.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hey, Samsung, posted from an iPhone 4S: 🙂