Well it looks like Samsung is turning their attention from Apple to Ericsson, at least for now. Samsung announced last week that they filed a complaint against Ericsson with the US International Trade Commission, requesting a US Import and sales ban on some Ericsson devices. Of course this comes just a month after Ericsson had sued Samsung in the US for patent infringement which included a request for an import ban on Samsung products.
This new complaint by Samsung was filed last Friday, and the company said in a statement:
“we have sought to negotiate with Ericsson in good faith. However, Ericsson has proven unwilling to continue such negotiations by making unreasonable claims, which it is now trying to enforce in court.”
This year, Ericssons profits have taken a huge hit. Which has forced them to rely heavily on their patents for income to stay alive. According to Foss Patents:
“While the two companies are no longer competing in the wireless gadgets market, Samsung is now also building a telecommunications infrastructure business. Samsung’s foray into Ericsson’s market is much less talked about than its Galaxy phones and tablets, but it’s starting to show results. For example, in August 2012, Samsung announced an LTE infrastructure deal with a UK carrier named Three, which it described as its “first commercial mobile network roll-out in Europe”, Ericsson’s home continent. I’m sure that at this point no one in the industry would underestimate Samsung’s ability to become a significant player, if not the leader, in a new segment of the overall market for telecommunications hardware. This certainly adds a more strategic dimension to the Ericsson-Samsung dispute.”
So the struggling Ericsson is being sued by the number one smartphone manufacturer in the world, Samsung. We’ll continue to keep an eye on this case and see what else breaks. Hopefully these two manufacturers can negotiate and get a settlement together soon.