In the light of a rejection earlier this week by a judge who refused to allow Apple to add Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S4 to an existing lawsuit, Apple has indicated it will file a new suit targeting the device.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal said adding another product to the case in San Jose, Calif., would be a “tax on the court’s resources,” Bloomberg reported on Thursday. Citing the fact that additional products take up “considerable amounts of the court’s time and energy,” he said the Galaxy S4 would not become part of the ongoing patent infringement case.
An attorney representing Apple responded by saying that the exclusion would require the Cupertino firm to file a new, separate lawsuit.
Apple first attempted to add the Galaxy S4 to the current California lawsuit back in May, soon after Samsung launched the device. Apple says their initial analysis of the device suggests that it also infringes on the iPhone maker’s patents.
Apple believes the Galaxy S4 infringes on five of its patents that are related to Siri, data synchronization, and graphical user interface elements.
Apple offered to replace one of the existing products in the lawsuit with the S4 in order to keep the total number of products in the suit at 22, but Grewal refused, as he hopes to keep the case on schedule for a target March 2014 trial.
