In a lawsuit pursuing against Apple in the Seoul Central District Court, the Korean giant Samsung is pressurizing the Cupertino Company and says it needs the iOS 6 source code to perform infringement analysis. The company claims that the source code is related to the function that allows iPhone users to check updated messages, schedules and weather information by swiping the upper-end of the display screen.
The patent was registered by Samsung in November 2006 and was adopted in various mobile devices such as Galaxy smartphones and android powered tablets. The very same function was then enabled on Apple devices in 2011 following an iOS 6 update, claims Samsung.
Apple representatives countered furiously and denounced the demand as “insane”. On the other hand Samsung’s legal representatives argued that it would be impossible for them to confirm whether its patent has been infringed on or not without Apple providing the source code of the latest mobile operating system.
“It doesn’t make any sense. Samsung is saying that we should give up protecting our most important data,’” court officials recalled Apple lawyers as saying. The court requested Apple to have its software designers and engineers testify, but the American technology giant refused.
“The court has yet to decide whether to accept Samsung’s request,” a court official told The Korea Times, requesting anonymity.
Apple lawyers said that the issue was a complicated technical matter but nonetheless accused Samsung of claiming ownership of a technology that was already widely in use,” said the court official.
In another lawsuit in Germany, court finds Apple to have infringed on Samsung 3G patent but stays lawsuit over validity concerns. Per FOSS patents, Judge Andreas Voss of the Mannheim Regional Court announced an order to lawsuit over EP1720373, which Samsung believes to be essential to the 3G cellular telecommunications standard (UMTS).
The two companies are already involved in more than 40 lawsuits stretching across four continents.
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