Apple wants to add Galaxy S4 to U.S. lawsuit

Apple told a U.S. judge it will seek permission to add Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy S4 smartphone to a list of 22 “accused products” Apple alleges infringes its patents.

The disclosure came in a footnote to a filing on Tuesday with U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh in San Jose, California, responding to her April 24 directive that each side submit a limited list of the other’s allegedly infringing products.

This is the second infringement lawsuit between the companies in the same court. Apple filed the case last year to address technology in newer smartphones made by the companies.

“Apple has identified (and separately counted) specific Samsung products - not product lines,” the Cupertino, California-based company told Koh in its six-page submission. Included on its 22-item list are Samsung’s Galaxy S2 and S3 phones, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Note 10.1 and Galaxy Note II hybrid phone-tablets and three Galaxy series tablet computers.

Should Apple win permission to add the Galaxy S4 smartphone that Samsung released last month, it will drop one of the other devices from the list, according to the filing.

Samsung, too, submitted a 22-product list to Koh, identifying as alleged infringers five models of Apple’s iPhone, five versions of the iPad tablet computer, three types of iPod digital-music players and the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air computers.

Each side also accused the other of failing to properly interpret and comply with the court’s April 24 directive.

Apple resubmitted an “identical” list of 22 products previously shown to the court on April 22 “with one addition: the Samsung Galaxy S4 product line, which Apple admits it has not even accused in this case,” Samsung claimed.

“Samsung continues to identify entire product lines as single accused products in an attempt to circumvent the court’s limit on accused products,” Apple said in its filing, citing the references to the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro computers.

This second patent suit follows a case in which a jury awarded Apple $1.05 billion after finding Samsung infringed six of the iPhone maker’s mobile-device patents.

Koh, correcting what she said was the jury’s error, reduced the damages total to $639.4 million and ordered a new trial in November for some products at issue in that case.

Bloomberg