Samsung says iPhone5 infringes 8 patents

SEOUL - Samsung Electronics, the world's No1 smartphone maker, said Tuesday that Apple's newest smartphone iPhone5 infringed eight of its patents, including two standards patents and six features patents.

Samsung added infringement claims about the iPhone 5 to the existing patent lawsuit against Apple at the US District Court of California. The original complaint was filed on April 18, alleging earlier iPhone models infringed the same eight patents, Samsung said in an e-mailed statement.

In a separate patent lawsuit at the same court, the US federal court jury found on August 24 that Samsung infringed on six of Apple's patents, ordering the Galaxy phone maker to pay $1.05 billion in damages to the iPhone maker.

"We have always preferred to compete in the marketplace with our innovative products, rather than in courtrooms. However, Apple continues to take aggressive legal measures that will limit market competition. Under these circumstances, we have little choice but to take the steps necessary to protect our innovations and intellectual property rights," the statement said.  

Meanwhile, Samsung won a court order lifting a ban on US sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer on Monday. US District Judge Lucy Koh rescinded the ban that she imposed in June, saying that the sole basis for the June 26 preliminary injunction no longer exists as the jury found earlier that Samsung did not breach the D'889 design patent.

"We are pleased with the country's action today, which vindicates our position that there was no infringement of Apple's design patent and that an injunction was not called for," Samsung said.