We knew this was going to happen. Stung by a judge’s recent decision to allow Apple to look through Samsung’s upcoming phones to look for IP violations, Samsung has just asked a judge in their own patent infringement case against Apple to make Cupertino fork over the prototypes of the iPhone 5 and iPad 3.
According to This Is My Next:
Samsung claims that it needs to see Apple’s future products because devices like the Droid Charge and Galaxy Tab 10.1 will presumably be in the market at the same time as the iPhone 5 and iPad 3, and Samsung’s lawyers want to evaluate any possible similarities so they can prepare for further potential legal action from Apple.
As such, Samsung has asked Apple to produce the “final, commercial versions” of the next-generation iPhone (likely due out in September) and the next-gen iPad (not due out until April of 2012! by June 13th, despite the fact that Samsung’s lawyers admit they don’t actually have any proof that these products are in the pipeline at all, since Apple’s never confirmed they are working on them.
It’s a pretty strange and laughable move, and it’s all moot anyway: even if Samsung happens to win this motion, Apple will simply appeal until either the court dismisses this requirement, or the iPhone 5 and iPad 3 have already been released.
So why is Samsung pursuing this line of thinking? Nilay Patel says it’s all about leverage:
Apple and Samsung held negotiations for a year before giving up and heading to the courts, and I’m reliably informed that there haven’t been any substantive settlement discussions since Apple first filed its complaint. That means talks have been at a standstill for a long time now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Samsung was trying to put some additional heat on Apple to try and kick negotiations back into gear.
In other words, as interesting as it is that Samsung is asking to see the iPhone 5, it doesn’t mean much: this is just initial bickering before the real fireworks begin.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
32 responses to “Samsung To Judge: Force Apple To Show Us The iPhone 5 And iPad 3”
If ordered to show the products, what stops Apple from just hand over scrapped iPad 2 and iPhone 4 prototypes? We know they have them laying around…unless they lost all of ’em.
I reckon regardless of the verdict, much like the general public, Samsung will be somewhat underwhelm with the minor facelifts & hardware updates of said iterations of both respective Apple devices. They should have requested prototypes for iPhone 6 & iPad 4 to get a better gauge on the state of affairs. Lol.
There’s only “ONE SOLUTION” to this problem. Keep the Manufacturing of Parts “IN THE US!” Use our own Patents & Create our own Technology. This will also help the US Economy.
You want to pay $3000 for an iPhone?
Outsourcing is typical business, and that’s how it’ll be for a while. Deal with it.
America has many other ways on fixing it’s economy, it can start by fixing the horrible education system.
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You do realise that a massive share of Apple’s profits come from outside the US don’t you and that they sell their products elsewhere?
the increased costs associated with the addition of less than 2 hours of human labour per unit PLUS associated per unit costs such as health care coverage, insurance or worker’s comp and with vacation time would add up to a total cost increase of LESS THAN $100.00 at the most EXTREME outside and according to some economists the additional costs would be as little as $25.00 per unit.
I wouldn’t mind paying that extra $25 or even more as long as I knew I was helping someone in my community, or local economies, I would be fine with it.
Wouldn’t you?
parts are made outside because its cheaper for the companies, if they didnt make it outside, the costs would be past down to us the consumers
parts are made outside because its cheaper for the companies, if they didnt make it outside, the costs would be past down to us the consumers
Samsung is a big joker.
Apple is arguing that Samsung has and continues to copy their stuff, using information they were given to make components for the phones etc. THAT is why the Judge is letting the lawyers see the models.
Samsung is arguing that Apple violated software patents. They only need to see iOS 5 to verify anything.
And any reasonably smart judge will know this and refuse the request which is being made in the hopes that they can pull an “If Apple doesn’t allow us, they shouldn’t be allowed either” game. Which will also fail
And you base that information on what? Especially the amount of labour it takes to assemble each device.
It’s not going to happen. :)
…yeah, and not letting Texas waste the country’s money editing textbooks to their own political slants. That’ll save some money, too.
Actually it isn’t a problem at all. Because Samsung would just copy the devices a few weeks later after the public release.
So have several manufacturing areas based around the sales area.
Asian factories for the Asian stores, US for the US/North American, Brazil or wherever for South America, Europe for Europe (they used to build some stuff in Ireland).
Probably reduce shipping, it would create more jobs and the countries in questions might give the company tax or other breaks for being there and helping the local economy.
While it wouldn’t really affect the copying and such, there is a logic to spreading out. At least the assembly side of things (the parts would likely still be coming from a few select companies which is where Samsung allegedly gets their deets to copy)
Apple wouldn’t do it. Eventually they would be discovered and would probably end up slapped with contempt of court or whatever
IF the judge ordered them to show, they would show. But it is unlikely the judge would and Apple would do everything to make sure it stayed unlikely