Samsung has decided not to block the iPhone 4S on its home ground of South Korea. The South Korean company has chosen not to launch a legal challenge to Apple’s new phone, which went on sale in the country last week.
Apple and Samsung are currently locked in a knock-down-drag-out legal fight over phone and tablet design, with the two companies gouging each others’ eyes, biting each other and pulling each others’ hair in Europe, Australia and Japan.
The trial date has set been for July 2012, with British-born iPod, iMac and iPhone designer Jony Ive in line to be grilled.
But Samsung has decided not to pursue the fight on its home ground, according to Korean paper the Chosun Ilbo. Samsung has decided it “should engage in legal battles with Apple only in the global market, but not in order to gain more market share in Korea”.
We can’t see Apple returning the favour and taking the pressure off Samsung in its home market, the US. Apple reckons the Galaxy range of phones and tablets, including the Galaxy S2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1, copy the iPhone and iPad right down to the packaging.
As well as targeting Samsung’s design, Apple is attacking Android indirectly. Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs, who died recently, hated Google’s Android operating system and vowed to spend all of Apple’s spare cash on destroying it — leading other Android manufacturers to circle the wagons, sharing patents to protect against legal challenges.
Samsung’s strategy of offering lots of different sizes and varieties of Galaxy phones to appeal to a range of folk seems to be working — last month Sammy sold more smart phones than Apple, and the company has sold more than 30 million Galaxy S and S2 phones.