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AGGRESSIVE LITIGATOR Apple has started the new year with another legal assault on Samsung in Germany.

The fruit themed firm has filed two lawsuits, one that alleges design patent infringements in ten of Samsung’s smartphones and another that levels similar charges for five of its tablets. Apple has asked for a ban on sales.

You know by now that the two parties do not get on, and while Samsung might tease Apple, the cappuccino always seems to hit harder.

We have asked both Apple and Samsung to tell us what is going on here, but in the meantime Bloomberg has it that Apple has filed two lawsuits, one that targets the ten smartphones, and one that goes after tablets. Bloomberg quotes a court official as its source.

So far so bad for Samsung in Germany. So far it has had to pull hardware out of a trade show and had to modify its 10in Galaxy Tab tablet to get around a ban.

“It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging,” is the official Apple line, which concludes, “This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple’s intellectual property when companies steal our ideas.”

Incidentally, the joke last week was that Samsung had started throwing eggs at its own stores. Samsung is throwing lawsuits of its own at Apple, of course, and as recently as December was adding to its court diary. µ

AGGRESSIVE LITIGATOR Apple has started the new year with another legal assault on Samsung in Germany.

The fruit themed firm has filed two lawsuits, one that alleges design patent infringements in ten of Samsung’s smartphones and another that levels similar charges for five of its tablets. Apple has asked for a ban on sales.

You know by now that the two parties do not get on, and while Samsung might tease Apple, the cappuccino always seems to hit harder.

We have asked both Apple and Samsung to tell us what is going on here, but in the meantime Bloomberg has it that Apple has filed two lawsuits, one that targets the ten smartphones, and one that goes after tablets. Bloomberg quotes a court official as its source.

So far so bad for Samsung in Germany. So far it has had to pull hardware out of a trade show and had to modify its 10in Galaxy Tab tablet to get around a ban.

“It’s no coincidence that Samsung’s latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging,” is the official Apple line, which concludes, “This kind of blatant copying is wrong, and we need to protect Apple’s intellectual property when companies steal our ideas.”

Incidentally, the joke last week was that Samsung had started throwing eggs at its own stores. Samsung is throwing lawsuits of its own at Apple, of course, and as recently as December was adding to its court diary. µ

FINNISH PHONE MAKER Nokia has reported a second successive net loss of €68m, which was not as bad as expected after higher sales of its low-end feature phones.

The surprising increase in sales of feature phones was due to strong sales of Nokia’s dual SIM handsets. The firm shipped 8 per cent more feature phones in the third quarter at 90 million, and 18 million were dual SIM phones.

Nokia’s €68m loss beat Wall Street’s estimate of a €321m loss. Meanwhile, the firm’s sales dropped 13 per cent to €8.98bn. Smartphone sales slumped by 38 per cent to 16.8 million units in the quarter, while average selling prices fell 21.5 per cent to €51.

Overall, Nokia’s mobile shipments fell three per cent to 106.6 million units in the third quarter from the same period a year earlier.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop said he was “encouraged by the progress we made during Q3″, while noting that “there are still many important steps ahead in our journey of transformation”.

He added, “Additionally, I am encouraged by our progress around the first Nokia experience with Windows Phone, and we look forward to bringing the experience to consumers in select countries later this quarter. We then intend to systematically increase the number of countries and launch partners during the course of 2012.”

Nokia has been targeting emerging markets such as India in recent times, accounting for the surge in feature phone sales, arguably at the expense of its smartphone portfolio.

The former (and perhaps future) maker of rubber boots will launch its first Windows Phone 7.5 (WP7.5) Mango smartphone(s) along with Microsoft at Nokia World next week. µ

ONLINE RETAILER Expansys has slashed the price of the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play ‘Playstation Phone’ for a second time to under £200.

The high end smartphone aimed at gamers has retailed for as much as £599, but can now be purchased for a third of that amount at £199. Expansys cut the price to £289 just over a month ago.

Meanwhile rival retailers are selling the handset for considerably more. Play has a price of £299 whilst Amazon and Clove have higher prices of £319 and £358, respectively. The Carphone Warehouse is selling the Xperia Play for £499 on pay as you go.

It is unclear why the phone has had its price plummet but we assume that the phone hasn’t sold as well as desired. After all the price tag was sky high.

We reviewed the Xperia Play back in April but didn’t find it to be as good as we had hoped, scoring it six out of ten. Although the phone is unique with its slide-out gaming controls, we found that some of them were useless and the screen had poor brightness.

At £199 the phone is somewhat more tempting because you do get a portable gaming console and smartphone in one device. µ