Apple’s won-lost legal record against courtroom and market foe Samsung has improved recently with a string of victories. Now, it sets its sights on the latest “flagship” in the Android smartphone world, the Samsung Galaxy S III.
Apple initially tried to halt sales of the Galaxy S III with an injunction before it launched in the U.S. last month, but failed to halt the stateside debut of Samsung’s latest smartphone. However, the Galaxy S III remains a courtroom target for Apple, and a victory halting its sale would leave Samsung with “big problems on its hands,” analyst Brian White of Topeka Capital Markets said in a note to investors on Monday.
Last week, Apple won rulings against both Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus smartphone, and its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet. White says he sees the victories as just one step in Apple’s ongoing “thermonuclear war” against Android. Which, he says the iPhone maker is “well prepared for,” with $110.2 billion in net cash as of the second quarter of its fiscal year 2012.
Late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs vowed to biographer Walter Isaacson that his company would “destroy” Android, as he said it was a “stolen product.” Jobs said he was willing to wage “thermonuclear war” and would have spent “every penny” that Apple had to “right this wrong.”
Samsung has already announced that it expects sales of the Galaxy S III to reach 10 million this month, even in the face of demand outstripping supply.
Apple failed in its bid to block the June 21 U.S. launch of the Galaxy S III because Judge Lucy Koh said she couldn’t fit the issue on her calendar on such short notice. The official trial between Apple and Samsung will begin at the end of July.
