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Samsung Declines to Seek iPhone 4S Ban in Korea, Wins Source Code Access

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Apr 12, 2001
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The Chosunilbo reports (via The Next Web) that Samsung has at the last minute elected not to request an injunction banning the sale of the iPhone 4S in its home country of South Korea. According to the report, the decision appears to have been spurred by public relations considerations, with Samsung preferring not to irk South Korean customers by attempting to have iPhone sales banned there.
Samsung had debated until the last moment whether to file the motion after making similar applications in France, Italy, Australia, and Japan.

The decision was apparently driven by public-relations concerns. A senior Samsung executive said, "We concluded that we should engage in legal battles with Apple only in the global market, but not in order to gain more market share in Korea."
Click to expand...
Samsung and Apple are of course engaged in legal battles in a number of other countries, with each company seeking injunctions banning the sale of the other's devices based on claims of intellectual property infringement.

apple_samsung_logos.jpg



Samsung is one of Apple's key component suppliers for its mobile devices, but also a primary competitor with its slate of Android-based handsets. As noted in his biography, Steve Jobs believed that Android was a "stolen product" and had vowed to "spend every penny" of Apple's cash horde to destroy the platform. Samsung initially adopted a defensive stance in the disputes, but has recently stepped up its efforts and begun targeting the iPhone using its own portfolio of patents covering 3G wireless technologies.

Meanwhile, developments continue in Samsung's case against Apple in Australia, where Apple was able to avoid Samsung's request to see Apple's contracts with mobile phone carriers in that country by simply testifying that the language Samsung was looking for was not included in the contracts. Samsung had been pursing claims of anti-competitive behavior by suggesting that carriers may have committed to paying premium subsidies for the iPhone.

Samsung did, however, win one concession from Apple, as noted by ITNews, with a Samsung engineer being given two hours with the iPhone 4S source code to examine its 3G implementation. Apple had argued that the specific 3G patents being cited by Samsung were licensed by Qualcomm, Apple's chip supplier, absolving Apple from any separate licensing requirement. But Samsung was apparently allowed access to the iPhone 4S source code in order to explicitly determine how the Qualcomm chip interfaces with the rest of the device's hardware.

Article Link: Samsung Declines to Seek iPhone 4S Ban in Korea, Wins Source Code Access
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/11/14/samsung-declines-to-seek-iphone-4s-ban-in-korea-wins-source-code-access/
Give up. You're not Apple. Just work to make parts for Apple.

(halfway kidding, halfway not)
 
Smart move. That would definitely be a PR nightmare trying to ban iPhone 4s in South Korea. Why do it with zero chance of winning anyway?
 
Can you imagine the incredible stress and pressure of being that one engineer with that kind of responsibility?
 
Samsung may be spinning this as a PR move, but their real motivation is to try and avoid giving Apple more ammunition in their European and US anti-comptition complaints.

If Samsung were to use its FRAND-encumbered IP to win an import ban it its home country, it would be practically begging the US and EU competition authorities to step-up their investigations in retaliation.

Remember: Samsung's 3G IP is a) virtually all subject to FRAND licensing, and b) subject to "exhaustion" - since Apple is buying chips from Qualcomm that already pay Samsung a royalty.
 
According to the report, the decision appears to have been spurred by public relations considerations, with Samsung preferring not to irk South Korean customers by attempting to have iPhone sales banned there.

That right there says it all.
 
If Samsung tried to get a ban on the iPhone in their own country there could be a huge backlash.
Apple should not provide their source code anytime to anyone, odd that the judge granted Samsung the source code, but can you really figure out if something is wrong in 2 hours, doubt it.
 
Just imagining...

I just imagine that someone gets a book the size of the U.S. Healthcare Bill and his boss tells him: "Find that thing we can sue them over. Should be somewhere between pages 456 and 774. You have 2 hours." Then, the engineer stares back like a deer in the headlights and the boss yells: "Start! 1h 59m 55s left!"

If you have trouble getting that image, watch "Password: Swordfish" :D
 
Access to iOS source code

Will it be specific to 3G implementation or the entire kitchen sink?
 
So Samsung thinks it can't win on its home turf. Sad.

Perhaps the country has weak patent laws?
 
2 hours to try to decipher someone else's code would be challenging. You know Apple is going to remove all comments and maybe even obfuscate the code to some degree..
 
I hope this is done in a way that does not allow samsung to sneak bits of code out of whatever room the engineer is allowed to examine the source code in.

:p
 
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