Apple To Be Sued By Samsung

The courtroom battle between Apple and Samsung seems to be far from over, and come tomorrow Apple is in for a major headache as soon as it makes the iPhone 5 official. That’s because Samsung is poised to sue the company over patents it owns relating to the LTE connectivity the new smartphone is expected to use.

All Samsung needs to confirm is that the iPhone 5 is shipping with 4G LTE and it can then apparently set its lawyers into action. As is typical with these patent lawsuits, Samsung will most likely seek an import ban meaning the iPhone 5 may not be able to leave its manufacturing plants and make it to the US to fulfill pre-orders. If such a thing ruling was made, Apple would most likely do a deal that meant it no longer pursued Samsung product bans, and might even forget about that billion dollar payout.

Facing Samsung in court again may not phase Apple even though the shoe will firmly be on the other foot this time. However, there’s two other companies set to try and block sales of the new iPhone. The first is the company behind the GooPhone i5, which successfully managed to patent the design of its phone in China that just happens to look like the leaked shots we have seen of the iPhone 5. If the two phones do indeed look the same, expect a lawsuit.

Apple may easily get that case thrown out on a prior art claim, but then there’s HTC to deal with. Apple is attempting to get two HTC patents relating to data transmission invalidated, but the comments of a US trade judge recently make that seem unlikely. If Apple doesn’t succeed, then it either has to settle with HTC or face both an iPad and iPhone 5 ban.

The iPhone 5 launch event is happening tomorrow, that is for certain. Whether Apple will have any iPhone 5 stock available to fulfill preorders in a few weeks is becoming increasingly uncertain.