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Topic: Telcos

T-Mobile sides with Samsung's defense in Apple patent suit

Summary: T-Mobile is the second mobile carrier this week to oppose Apple's bid to ban a range of Samsung's phones, in the midst of a long-running patent fight between the two companies.The phone giant joins Verizon, which earlier this week sided with Samsung to prevent a slow adoption rate on its new high-speed 4G network.

Zack Whittaker

By for Between the Lines |

T-Mobile is the second mobile carrier this week to oppose Apple's bid to ban a range of Samsung's phones, in the midst of a long-running patent fight between the two companies.

The phone giant joins Verizon, which earlier this week sided with Samsung to prevent a slow adoption rate on its new high-speed 4G network. In a run-up to the holiday season, T-Mobile's reasons focus on not having key 4G-compatible devices to be banned in time for the Christmas period.

The company's advertising campaigns already heavily feature the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the Galaxy S 4G smartphone. The court filing shows a stocked inventory of Samsung devices, and T-Mobile warns that "investments cannot be recouped easily".

T-Mobile warns that "unnecessarily harm" its business operations, citing reasons similar to that of Verizon, stating that the end consumer would ultimately suffer if Apple were to win an injunction against Samsung smartphones.

Other mobile networks have yet to weigh in on the case, but after Verizon -- the largest network in the U.S., and now T-Mobile -- the fourth largest, it should come as no surprise that others including Sprint and AT&T, which also sell Samsung devices, could add their grievances to the pot.

Apple sued Samsung in April, asking the International Trade Commission to ban sales of its devices in the United States, citing reasons that Samsung copied the design of its iPad and iPhone design. Samsung rebutted the claims, and alleged that Apple infringed patents of its own in a counter-suit.

Apple and Samsung continue to fight over hardware patents belonging to each other, leading to a series of lawsuits in over twenty countries to date.

Related:

Topics: Telcos, Apple, Mobility, Samsung

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22 comments
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  • RE: T-Mobile sides with Samsung's defense in Apple patent suit

    Surprise, Surprise.
    Mobile carriers stand to lose a fair amount of revenue if Samsung doesn't win this fight. This has nothing to do with consumer satisfaction, and I am including, T-mobile, Verizon and Apple in this.
    dominic64_2003@...
    Reply Vote

    • RE: T-Mobile sides with Samsung's defense in Apple patent suit

      @dominic64_2003@...
      +1
      Ram U
      Reply Vote

  • RE: T-Mobile sides with Samsung's defense in Apple patent suit

    Which phones are they talking about? I've never seen a Samsung phone that could be mistaken with an iPhone.
    Aerowind
    Reply Vote

    • RE: T-Mobile sides with Samsung's defense in Apple patent suit

      @Aerowind their original Galaxy Line resembled the 3Gs....

      With that said, Apple appears to be losing some of their court battles simply because Samsung is providing the court with better comparison images.
      slickjim
      Reply Vote

      • Redefining?

        @Peter Perry
        True - this looks more and more to be devolving into "okay, they really don't look that alike, BUT they stole my multi-gesture-thing-a-ma-bob doohickey by gosh!"

        :O
        rhonin
        Reply Vote

  • RE: T-Mobile sides with Samsung's defense in Apple patent suit

    It really does hurt the consumer to remove their choice! If Apple had their way, none of us would have LTE until the entire network covered more than 50% of the market.
    slickjim
    Reply Vote

    • and.....

      @Peter Perry
      The i7 had the perfect non-battery draining LTE hardware.
      rhonin
      Reply Vote

  • The people are rising

    and fighting the Apple patent FUD.
    Apple has to drop its lawsuit to appease the people and survive.
    The Linux Geek
    Reply Vote

    • RE: T-Mobile sides with Samsung's defense in Apple patent suit

      @The Linux Geek
      -1000000.
      Ram U
      Reply Vote

      • RE: T-Mobile sides with Samsung's defense in Apple patent suit

        @Rama.NET -100000000000..............000000. stop trolling you jackass
        tejainece
        Reply Vote

    • RE: T-Mobile sides with Samsung's defense in Apple patent suit

      @The Linux Geek I am looking around, where are they? Oh, you mean two of the largest carriers in the US are rising and complaining. That's completely different for saying the people. These are companies, they are trying to protect their profits, nothing more than that.
      non-biased
      Reply Vote

  • And just for irony....

    I recently interviewed at Apple, I showed up with both a Samsung Galaxy S (Nexus S) and a Galaxy Tab (Google Tablet).
    B.O.F.H.
    Reply Vote

    • and their response was?

      @B.O.F.H. <br>inquiring minds and all that... <img border="0" src="http://www.cnet.com/i/mb/emoticons/wink.gif" alt="wink">
      rhonin
      Reply Vote

    • RE: T-Mobile sides with Samsung's defense in Apple patent suit

      @B.O.F.H. OOOOHHHHH! You're so daring!
      Dcmiltown
      Reply Vote

    • RE: T-Mobile sides with Samsung's defense in Apple patent suit

      @B.O.F.H. - I REALLY wish that zdnet would institute a voting or liking option to posts. I would both vote up and like this one. Must have been a great shocker to them.
      PollyProteus
      Reply Vote

  • RE: T-Mobile sides with Samsung's defense in Apple patent suit

    Sorry Apple. This is unamerican. So as the owner of an all-mac powered business (since 1984), i bought a round of Sammies, including a galaxy 10in tab, for the shop.
    afficionado
    Reply Vote

  • Apple has a rotton core

    The tide is turning against Apple.

    I hope they drown
    Chipesh
    Reply Vote

  • RE: T-Mobile sides with Samsung's defense in Apple patent suit

    At the very least, everyone has now heard that Samsung has devices that look similar to Apple's. So they are less likely to mistake a Samsung device for an iPhone or iPad. And with the iPhone 5 coming out, who is caring about a 3GS similar phone?
    grayknight
    Reply Vote

  • Looking in hindsight....

    I took some time over the weekend and did a second look at all the sue-me sue-you hub-bub in the Android-Apple world.<br><br>It looks more like a "oh-crap" realization effort by Apple once they realized they are being out-engineered by the Android collective.<br><br>Then you add the potential of the same from a Win perspective and you have a company who's future plans suddenly look a little bit lacking.<br>Call it a reactive posture on the Apple side...<br>Just my hindsight opinion.... <img border="0" src="http://www.cnet.com/i/mb/emoticons/plain.gif" alt="plain">
    rhonin
    Reply Vote

  • RE: T-Mobile sides with Samsung's defense in Apple patent suit

    Big surprise, the majority of the posts in the thread really have nothing to do with the story and are just known Apple haters taking any oportunity to bash Apple. Verizon and T-Mobile are only trying to protect their profits, they are not trying to do anything to help the consumer beyond make money off of them. As far as the Samsung/Apple cases go, we will just have to wait for the courts to sort everything out. So many here like to spout their opinions on the cases but nobody here has the true insight into the cases to have any clue what is going on. Most opinions posted have little or nothing to do with relevancy of the cases and most or everything to do with the posters hatred or fanboy position.
    non-biased
    Reply Vote
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