Report: Apple considering new suit against Galaxy S 4
Bloomberg is reporting that US Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal has rejected Apple's attempt to include the recently released Samsung Galaxy S 4 in Apple's second California lawsuit against Samsung which is slated to begin in March 2014.
Adding another product to the case is a "tax on the court's resources," Grewal said in the ruling. "Each time these parties appear in the courtroom, they consume considerable amounts of the court's time and energy, which takes time way from other parties who also require and are entitled to the court's attention."
Apple initially filed a motion seeking to include the Galaxy S 4 this past May and noted that it would be willing to drop one of the accused products already included in the suit if necessary. That, apparently, wasn't sufficiently persuasive for Judge Grewal.
An Apple lawyer argued that by excluding the GS4, Apple might have to file a new lawsuit since the devices already covered by the suit will be out of date by the time a verdict is reached.
Indeed, this seems to be an ongoing problem for Apple and one for which there doesn't seem to be a practical solution.
Tim Cook acknowledged this very predicament when he appeared before Congress this past May.
I think the US Court system is currently structured in such a way that tech companies aren't getting the intellectual property protection they need. Our cycles are fast, the court system is very long and the foreign competitors in the US can quickly take IP and use it and ship products with it and they're to the next product as well. I would love to see conversations between countries and see protections between IP globally. For us, our intellectual property is so important, I would love the system to be strengthened in order to protect it.
Put simply, the cases Apple brings to trial against Samsung are perpetually a generation behind Samsung's current smartphone lineup. The end result is that Apple is continuously playing catch-up and expending a lot of money litigating cases over products that don't often include Samsung's current flagship devices.
The Verge has posted the full court ruling over here.
