Stefan Mileschin

Samsung has claimed that Apple is refusing to enter into negotiations to license essential 3G patents.

During the first day of a patent trial on Monday in Federal Court in Sydney, Samsung moaned that it had never wanted to take Jobs' Mob to court, but it was simply not paying up.

According to PC World, this was because Apple was suing Samsung claiming that the company's Galaxy tablet infringed on patents related to touchscreen technology. While the rest of the world saw Samsung's patent lawsuit as a tit-for-tat counterstrike, it was not the case, lawyers for Samsung said.

Samsung filed a cross-claim against Apple, claiming violation of three 3G data transmission patents in Apple's iPhone 4 and 4S models and second iPad model.

In Oz the two main patents involved are Australian patents 2005202512 and 2006241621. These deal with power control and the format of packet headers used for 3G data transmissions. The court will also look at patent 2005239657, which deals with rate matching patterns used in data transmission.

Samsung's attorney Neil Young said that normally with these sorts of patents Apple and Samsung would negotiate to license the patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

However with its "thermonuclear" action against Samsung, Apple refused to engage in negotiations.

Samsung asked Justice Annabelle Claire Bennett to separate the company's cross-claim hearings from Apple's tablet claims because it was only connected in Apple's own mind.

http://news.techeye.net/mobile/apple...egotiate-on-3g