Samsung To Apple: Show Us The New iPhone

Apple and Samsung have not had the best of relationships as of late. With Samsung copying Apple products (even their packaging to a certain point), Apple has filed a lawsuit against Samsung to protect its investments. We all expected Samsung not to accept the charges. As it turns out, Samsung is taking it a step further by asking Apple to reveal its future generation products to make sure its own upcoming products won’t be subjected to the same claims.

This is a crazy request but Samsung has a good reason for it (as Thisismynext put it). The next generation Samsung devices will hit the market at the same time as iPhone 5 and iPad 3. Samsung just want to make sure it has not copied those devices. This comes after a judge ordered Samsung to pony up its pre-production tablets and smart-phones as a part of Apple’s lawsuit against the company.

Apple has demonstrated good cause for some, limited expedited discovery… Although the Court expresses no opinion on the merits of Apple’s claims, the Court notes that Apple has produced images of Samsung products and other evidence that provide a reasonable basis for Apple’s belief that Samsung’s new products are designed to mimic Apple’s products,

said Judge Lucy Koh. Of course, just because lawyers want to see the other company’s new products does not mean that engineers will learn about their features. At the same time, Samsung is trying to buy itself some leverage by asking for something crazy here. It is not likely this will force Apple’s hands though.