Edible Apple

As Apple lays the legal pressure on Samsung, the South Korean based manufacturer seems unfazed by the impending litigation waiting at its doorsteps. As a quick refresher, Apple recently sued Samsung for patent infringement claiming that it’s lineup of Galaxy smartphones and tablets “slavlishly” copy the look and fee of its iOS products. And not to play judge, jury, and executioner with a tinge of keyboard warrior tossed in for good measure, but it’s really hard to look at Samsung’s products and not get the feeling that their blueprint was basically a verbatim copy of what products like the iPhone were already like.

That said, Samsung seems to be taking the lawsuit in stride. In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Samsung’s J.K. Shin explained his company’s intention to make Andorid the centerpiece for its tablet strategy while simultaneously brushing aside any potential legal threat posed by Apple.

“We didn’t copy Apple’s design,” Mr. Shin said. “We have used many similar designs over the past years and it [Apple’s allegation] will not be legally problematic.” He suggested the scale of the lawsuit could grow, though he didn’t provide more details.

As for the aforementioned legal case, Apple won an interesting victory last week when the Court granted Apple’s motion that requires Samsung to hand over 5 upcoming Android devices to see the degree of similarity they exhibit with Apple’s own products. This past Friday, Samsung filed a motion asking to see Apple’s iPhone 4 and iPad 3 for baseless reasons dressed up in legal mumbo jumbo.

What makes this all the more compelling is that Samsung and Apple are also close partners, with Apple providing Samsung with over $6 billion worth of business each year.

To date, no device has been able to give the iPad a true challenge. This Summer, though, Samsung has plans to release both 8.9 inch and 10.1 inch tablets running the latest version of Honeycomb, the mobile OS optimized for tablets.