Samsung claims Apple infringed eight patents in reply to Apple suit

Samsung Electronics alleged in a counterclaim to an Apple patent infringement lawsuit in a federal court in California that the maker of the iPhone and iPad has infringed eight of its patents.

The W-CDMA and UMTS patents at issue in the action relate to "reliability, capacity, efficiency, compatibility, and functioning of mobile devices" in W-CDMA and UMTS networks, Samsung said in its filing before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Wednesday.

Apple filed a patent lawsuit against Samsung in February seeking an injunction and damages on sales of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and other products. Samsung denied infringing the patents cited in Apple's complaint in its counterclaim.

In April 2011 Apple sued Samsung before the same court for a previous round of products that allegedly infringed its patents relating to the iPhone and iPad devices. The two companies agreed earlier this week to attend a settlement conference on this lawsuit within 90 days.

Samsung charged on Wednesday that Apple has infringed its patents in a number of its products. Apple's iPhones, all iPads, all iPods, all Apple computers, Apple TV, iCloud, and iTunes are said to be in infringement, for example, of a 2009 patent titled "Multimedia Synchronization Method and Device."

The patents that Samsung said Apple has infringed include U.S. patent numbers 7,756,087; 7,551,596; 7,672,470; 7,577,757; 7,232,058; 6,292,179; 6,226,449 and 5,579,239, which can be viewed by searching the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website.

The South Korean company and its U.S. subsidiaries said that it has in its portfolio 30,665 U.S. patents, including 6,238 in the telecommunications field, as of April 18.

Two of the patents are FRAND-pledged patents that Samsung declared essential to European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) standards, said patent analyst Florian Mueller in a blog post. FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) licenses allow companies to develop open standards by sharing information and technology.

Samsung and Apple are involved in litigation in many countries.

John Ribeiro covers outsourcing and general technology breaking news from India for The IDG News Service. Follow John on Twitter at @Johnribeiro. John's e-mail address is john_ribeiro@idg.com

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