JURIST - Paper Chase: Federal judge allows Apple, Samsung to add products to patent lawsuit

[JURIST] A judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California [official website] ruled Thursday that Apple and Samsung Electronics [corporate websites] may each pursue additional patent infringement claims against the other, allowing each company to add devices brought to market after the original lawsuit was filed in February. Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal allowed Apple to add claims [Bloomberg report] that several of its patents are violated by a number of Samsung products, including the Galaxy SIII, Galaxy Note and the Jelly Bean operating system. Grewal also allowed Samsung to pursue claims that its patents are infringed by Apple's iPhone 5. Originally filed by Apple, the lawsuit alleges that the various Samsung smart phones and tablets infringe eight of Apple's patents, and in response Samsung has filed cross-compalints alleging that Apple's iPhone and iPad infringe eight of its patents. The lawsuit is one of two pending patent infringement cases [materials] between the two companies, and is currently scheduled for trial in 2014.

Apple and Samsung have been embroiled in continuous patent litigation in courts around the world. In October the Dutch Rechtbank's-Gravenhage [official website] court ruled that Samsung did not infringe [JURIST report] on an Apple software patent. In the same month a UK court also ruled that Samsung did not infringe [JURIST report] on an Apple design patent. In the same time frame Apple appealed a Tokyo District Court ruling [JURIST report] which dismissed the company's claim that Samsung had infringed on its patents. At the beginning of October, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit [official website] reversed an injunction [JURIST report] against Samsung that prevented it from selling its Galaxy Nexus product. Earlier in August, Apple won a $1.05 billion judgment [JURIST report] in the Northern District of California against Samsung involving other patent infringements.