Battle of the Smartphones

Bangalore: The battle of the patents between Apple and Samsung is getting messier! Apple has added six more products as infringements of its patents in the lawsuit against Samsung. The Galaxy Note II, Galaxy S III, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Rugby Pro and Galaxy S III mini are the new additions that face the multibillion-dollar patent lawsuit in the San Jose federal court, California.

"Apple has acted quickly and diligently to determine that these newly released products do infringe many of the same claims already asserted by Apple, and in the same way that the already-accused devices infringe," the Cupertino, California-based computer-maker said in its filing.

The patent infringements include the "rubber band" effect where the page "bounces" when a user scrolls to the bottom. It also includes touch-screen actions like dragging documents and multi-touch capabilities like pinch to zoom and twist to rotate. Another patent infringement is the touch-screen patent which relates to a device capable of distinguishing between a single-touch scroll operation and a multi-touch pinch-to-zoom operation.

The next one is the feature of double-tap touch screen. This feature allows enlarging and centering the portions of web page, photo, document, etc.

There are patents relating to the front face of an electronic device, as embodied by the iPhone. The general outline of the phone which focuses on a grid of rounded square icons set against a black background.

Even the Google-owned Android Jelly Bean operating system is found to be violating its patents.

The final patent, which relates to the industrial design of a tablet computer, the Wi-Fi and the 4G LTE versions of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is found to be infringing Apple patents.

Samsung has retaliated and accused Apple iPhone 5 to be violating its patents. Samsung alleges that the new iPhone 5 violates 8 of its patents. It has accused that the iPhone 5 infringes its 4G, long term evolution (LTE) connectivity patents. US Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal in San Jose, California, has given a go ahead to their claims.

Apple earlier won a ruling in its favor in the U.S. While Samsung won the rulings in South Korea, Japan, and the UK. Both companies have legal disputes extended to ten countries. Apple and Motorola Mobility were also already engaged in a patent war on several fronts. “An Apple a day is certainly keeping the mobile companies away!”

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