SourceCode: Samsung to Apple - Show me yours and I'll show you mine

By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla

So, now Samsung is trying to turn the tables on Apple after the iPhone maker filed suit against Samsung for allegedly copying design and functionality elements of the iPhone and the iPad. The earlier suit alleged that Samsung copied the look, product design, packaging and user interface of its products, violating its patents and trademarks and possibly causing confusion in the market.

Apple demanded and won a California court order for Samsung to surrender unreleased Galaxy smartphones and tablets to Apple's legal team to ensure that there aren't any obvious similarities between Samsung's competing products and Apple's.

"Rather than innovate and develop its own technology and a unique Samsung style for its smartphone products and computer tablets, Samsung chose to copy Apple's technology, user interface and innovative style in these infringing products," Apple claimed in its earlier suit.

Samsung's response to Apple? Show me yours and I'll show you mine! Samsung filed multiple patent infringement lawsuits against Apple in Seoul, Tokyo and Germany. And last week, Samsung's legal team wants to get a sneak peek at unreleased, unannounced iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 and iPad 3 models. Samsung also wants Apple to show their lawyers all packaging and promotional materials related to these unreleased, unannounced and currently non-existent products. Say what?!

Anyone who follows Apple knows that secrecy is germane to Apple's operational ethos. This is doubly true when it relates to new products and technologies, so good luck with that.  

Samsung's argument is that a preview of these pre-release products would help it, "prepare its defense against any preliminary injunction motion brought against Samsung by Apple for trademark or trade dress infringement." We don't see Apple giving in to these demands, much less acknowledging that there are such products as an iPhone 5 or iPad 3.

Where does this leave Samsung and Apple in terms of their supplier partnership. Apple is Samsung's second largest customer and spent US$5.68 billion for various components last year. Aside from LCD's, monitors, memory, SSD storage and various components, Samsung also manufactures the Apple designed A4 and A5 processors that power iPhones, iPads and AppleTV's.

Will this very public and vicious spat between the two frenemy companies lead to a more serious rift? In the smartphone and tablet space, Samsung seems hell bent on outdoing Apple's products and design at every turn by offering thinner smartphone and tablet devices but with similar specs of what Apple is currently offering.

Consider that Intel, a huge Apple partner in desktops and notebooks,  has made recent overtures that it may be interested in fabricating bespoke ARM chips for third parties like Sony and Apple. Apple has been known to dump partners and go elsewhere once it is confident of a new direction. It transitioned its entire desktop and notebook like from Motorola PowerPC processors to Intel in less than 18 months back in 2006. 

A Reuters report last week stated just as much, "There are certain customers that would be interesting to us and certain customers that wouldn't," Intel's Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith told journalists after an investor event in London on Thursday. He added that Intel would be happy to produce chip cores based on its own architecture for other companies but that allowing rival architectures to be manufactured in its plants would be a tough decision.

Tough for sure, but highly profitable, no doubt.

Apple and Intel already collaborate on made to order low power processors for the MacBook Air. They are partners in the Thunderbolt high-speed I/O initiative, Macs are running on Intel's vaunted Sandy Bridge architecture, the list runs long. 

We know that Intel has been clamouring to enter the mobile processor space in dramatic fashion for some time now, Apple is the perfect partner for the picking. Knowing Apple, we wouldn't be surprised if it already has alternative options of iOS running on alternate chipsets in various phases of testing.

Still, Apple's COO Tim Cook was reported as having gone to South Korea to source new AMOLED screens for upcoming products so as a relationship, you can say it's complicated.

Apple might just get sick and tired of dancing with Samsung for components one day and brawling with them for product and copyright issues  the next and ditch them altogether in favour of another supplier, at least for components it can get elsewhere.

Source: Reuters