Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics
Co. began the latest round of their long-running global patent war on Monday as
an Australian judge started hearing evidence for an anticipated 3-month
long trial.
Apple and Samsung have been locked in an acrimonious
battle across 10 countries involving smartphones and tablets since April 2011,
with the Cupertino, California-based company filing a suit in Australia saying
the touch-screen technology used in Samsung’s new Galaxy 10.1 tablet violates
Apple patents.
The Fight has triggered expectations that some of the
pair’s $5 billion-plus relationship may be up for grabs. Samsung counts Apple
as its biggest customer and makes parts central to Apple’s mobile devices.
While any decision in the Australian case is unlikely to
have a substantial impact in other jurisdictions like Europe or the United
States where the technology giants are also suing each other, the trial
proceedings could reshape the legal strategies employed by Apple and Samsung in
other countries, lawyers say.
Mark Summerfield, a patent lawyer and senior associate
with Melbourne-based law firm Watermark, said “there’s no doubt there’s a
strategic and psychological effect” attached to the Australian case. “Courts in
other countries will watch what is happening here,” he said.
Apple and Samsung representatives declined to comment on
Monday at the hearing.
The Australian case arose in April 2011 when Apple said
Samsung copied the design of some of its tablet and smart phone devices.
Samsung has since launched a counterclaim in Australia alleging that Apple
infringed a number of South Korean technology firm’s data-transmission patents.
The lawsuits from both companies are being heard as one
case in the Australian federal court.
Samsung won
an early round of the Australian litigation when it succeeded in overturning an
injunction on the sale of its Galaxy 10.1 tablet in Australia just before
Christmas last year.
But Apple
won a heavyweight U.S. round when a judge banned the sale of both Samsung’s
Galaxy 10.1 tablet and the Galaxy Nexus phone ahead of a formal trial there.
Patent cases are also pending in Britain and Germany.
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