The war between Apple (AAPL) and Samsung to assert rights to key technologies in the booming $220 billion smartphone market seems to be never ending, and it’s about to get worse.
After scoring a sweeping legal victory and winning more than $1 billion in damages from the South Korean-based firm last month, Apple filed a motion late Friday asking a U.S. District Court in San Jose, California for another $707 million in supplemental damages and a permanent U.S. sales ban on Samsung Electronics’ infringing products.
“The harm to Apple was deliberate, not accidental,” Apple attorneys said in court papers filed Sept. 21. Samsung “willfully diluted its trade dress, taking billions in sales in the fast- growing U.S. smartphone market at a key moment in the transition between feature phones and smartphones,” attorneys said.
In the first six months of 2012 alone, Samsung raked in over 1.5 billion dollars in revenue from violating Apple’s intellectual property related to 26 of its products, according to the jury’s findings in late August.
Apple wants Friday’s court injunction to cover “any of the infringing products or any other product with a feature or features not more than colorably different from any of the infringing feature or features in any of the Infringing Products,” according to the filing.
Not going to give-up without a fight, Samsung responded in a U.S. court filing by asking for a new trial to be held.
[via Reuters]“The Court’s constraints on trial time, witnesses and exhibits were unprecedented for a patent case of this complexity and magnitude, and prevented Samsung from presenting a full and fair case in response to Apple’s many claims,” Samsung said.
“Samsung therefore respectfully requests that the Court grant a new trial enabling adequate time and even-handed treatment of the parties.”
In a separate statement, Samsung argued that patent rulings should also cover issues such as the shape of the product in addition to technological points.
“It is unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners, or technology that is being improved every day by Samsung and other companies,” it said.
If found guilty of patent infringement again, Samsung — the world’s top smartphone maker in Q2’12, shipping more than 50 million phones, nearly double Apple’s 26 million iPhone shipments, could not only face significant financial damages, but flagship company devices like the Galaxy S III could be taken off the market per Apple’s request.
Samsung and Apple are locked in dozens of suits and countersuits in 10 countries. The courtroom conflict could continue for years.
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