“Anything you can do, I can do better,” is the tune Samsung’s whistling this Memorial Day weekend, as its legal team has requested that Apple hand over some upcoming products as a part of its ongoing patent battle with the Mac maker. Just last week, Apple asked the same of Samsung, and a federal judged agreed, ordering Samsung to hand over five products from its Galaxy and Infuse lines.
For those of you who are new to the case, the issue essentially comes down to the fact that Apple’s iPad and iPhone 4 look suspiciously similar to some of Samsung’s Galaxy tablets and Infuse phones. After Apple sued Samsung in April over the lookalikes, Samsung immediately followed suit and counter-sued Apple for copying its products.
This time around, however, Apple has much more at stake, as Samsung lawyers have asked to see the iPad 3 and the iPhone 5: products that have never seen the light of day. The products that Apple got its hands on last week included the Galaxy S II, the Galaxy Tab 8.9 and 10.1, the Infuse 4G, and the Infuse 4G LTE. Two of those devices have already hit the market, and the remaining three have been spotted in leaked photos or product announcements across the web. In other words, everything Apple’s legal team had a look at, we’ve seen, too.
The next-gen iPad and iPhone, on the other hand, are two tightly kept secrets. Nevertheless, Samsung believes it has a valid argument to check out these devices. In court documents posted by This Is My Next, Samsung needs the devices to “evaluate whether a likelihood of confusion exists between the Samsung and Apple products that will be in the market at the same time.”
Apple, of course, rejected the request, claiming that future devices bear “no relevance” to the issue at hand, which concerns products currently in the market. There’s no telling how this will end up for either manufacturer, but one thing that seems clear is that this patent battle is far from over.
[This is my next via PC World]