Apple Sues Samsung at the Seoul Central District Court for violation of Apple IP

In one of the biggest cases this year, Apple has sued Samsung in a Korean court.

Samsung is a supplier of key components for the IPhone and IPad and has a competing smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop and software solutions that directly compete with Apple.

The companies are going at eachother around the world.

As one of the most nationalist countries in the Asian region, Korea, with a propensity to disregard/minimize violations of law by the major conglomerates in the belief that protection is needed for these enterprises for the sake of the national interest, will have a unique opportunity to shack this common and naïve belief and finally discount the “Korean Discount” and stimulate foreign investment.

I have no information on the merits of the case, but will update readers when I have the chance to read the complaint.

The future of Korea is not Korean conglomerates, but foreign investment and the development of a vibrant SME market as is the case for most developed and recently developed nations.

The notion that without Samsung and the power that be at Samsung, the country with collapse on itself is naïve at best.

Samsung accounts for a huge, but decreasing portion of the Korean economy, however, job growth is increasing coming not from the big boys, but from SMEs and foreign investment in Korea.

Another interesting aspect of this case is to see will be how aggressive the law firm for Apple will be.

The ubiquitous Korean law firms are notorious for being passive especially in cases that may be detrimental to their reputations with Koreans. Yes, many law firms are also nationalistic especially when foreign attorneys at these ubiquitous firms are powerless and a mere tool to appease clients and proof memos.

Additionally, since so many of the ubiquitous firm clients are major suppliers to Samsung they often ignore the obvious conflict of interest, but work in a manner that doesn’t upset Korean clients.

We hope this will not be the case and will be carefully watching this case and will update the reader.

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SeanHayes@ipglegal.com