Apple files lawsuit against Samsung's patent infringement

Apple Inc. filed a lawsuit against Samsung Electronic Co. Friday, accusing the South Koran company of infringing its patented technologies used in making its iconic smartphone, the iPhone.

   In a complaint filed with the Seoul Central District Court, Apple requested that Samsung Electronics be stopped from selling a line of its touch screen smartphones and a tablet PC that hit the local and global markets following the U.S. firm's launch of its first smartphone model iPhone III.

   Apple also demanded 100 million won (US$92,500) in compensation.

   Apple argued in the complaint that Samsung Electronics' Galaxy phones and the Galaxy Tab mini-size PC infringed Apple's patented technologies used in the iPhone, which enable users to scroll up and down a long electronic document just by flicking the touchscreen.

   The Samsung products also unlawfully used Apple's ideas to enable users to push an on-screen icon for an extended period of time in order to activate it into a different mode in which they can relocate or remove it, it said.

   Apple also claimed Galaxy phones copied the design of iPhone that appears in a round-cornered rectangle shape with one round push botton in the center bottom.

   Apple wants the court to stop further production and lending of the Galaxy series, the complaint said.

   "Samsung's illegal competition seriously damaged and diluted 'recognition' of Apple's iPhone, stripping it of distinctive features," one court official quoted Apple as saying in the complaint.

   Apple's legal action came amid the two companies' escalating competition for bigger shares in the increasingly popular smartphone market. Apple had filed similar lawsuits against Samsung in the U.S. in April.

    Samsung Electronics had countered by filing similar lawsuits against Apple in the U.S., South Korea, Japan and Germany, arguing that the U.S. firm has copied 10 of its patents to make the iPhone. (Yonhap News)