Swedish electronics firm Ericsson has filed a US patent infringement lawsuit against Korean competitor Samsung. Officials from Stockholm-based LM Ericsson said in an official statement released on Tuesday, “Ericsson has today filed a lawsuit in the United States against Samsung for infringing its patents, after nearly two years of negotiations failed to reach an agreement.”
The statement added, “The dispute concerns both Ericsson’s patented technology that is essential to several telecommunications and networking standards used by Samsung’s products, as well as other of Ericsson’s patented inventions that are frequently implemented in wireless and consumer electronics products.”
Ericsson has claimed that its patented technology is available to other firms for a fee, but added that Samsung continues to refuse to sign a licensing agreement despite prolonged negotiations.
The news comes amid a growing trend for court battles between mobile technology companies. Korea-based Samsung has recently been at the centre of several high-profile cases. In the last two years, the Seoul-based company has taken on computer giant Apple in the US, the Netherlands, Japan and the United Kingdom in a dispute over technology associated with tablet computers and mobile phones.