Our friends at PaidContent this morning reported that Apple filed a complaint earlier this week in a federal court in San Jose citing two patents and asking for an injunction against the Korean electronics maker. The patents in question are  8,074,172 and 8,086,604. The first is related to spelling and autocorrect. The second is described as a “universal interface for retrieval of information in a computer system.”

What Apple is asking for in this case is unclear — as in whether they’re targeting the Galaxy Tab or Galaxy phones or any other product — since most of the court documents haven’t been made publicly available.

But it’s clear that Apple is not through trying to use the courts to punish Samsung for, as Apple put it, “slavishly copying” its iPhone and iPad products.

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Samsung has agreed not to sell or advertise the Galaxy Tab 10.1 before the court’s decision, which should come down following a hearing scheduled for Sept. 26 and 29. Initially, FOSS Patents reports, Samsung’s lawyers were actually opposed to the idea of another delay of the product launch, but the judge advised that launching despite the pending issue of the preliminary injunction wouldn’t be wise. After some internal discussion between Samsung execs and its legal team, the company agreed to hold off.

In an attempt to stave off a preliminary injunction in Australia, Samsung slightly altered the Galaxy Tab 10.1. Apple’s initial delay was so that it could receive and examine the new model to see if it still considered it in violation of its intellectual property. There’s no word on what specifically is changed about the Australian Tab, but Apple’s lawyers discussed its “reduced functionality,” though it still thinks the device is too close of a copycat.

After a limited Dutch injunction against Galaxy smartphones and a reaffirmed German injunction against the Tab both came down last week, it looks like Apple is gaining some momentum in its intellectual property fight with Samsung. The actual trials are where we’ll really start to see how things will ultimately shake out, but with a California court agreeing to expedite a trial in that district, we won’t have to wait too long before the action starts.

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The lawyer in question, Kim Hyung-suk, won the decision in South Korean court in May, and the funds were reportedly withdrawn from Apple Korea’s bank account by the court after the company refused to voluntarily comply. Kim now has 27,000 signatures on a web-based petition seeking co-complainants for a class-action suit in South Korea designed to “protect privacy” rights, according to the AP. Of that number, 26,691 are now listed as plaintiffs in the civil suit filed by Kim’s firm on Wednesday, and 921 are minors and are seeking parental consent before being added to the list.

The iPhone’s locally stored database of nearby cell towers, along with a bug that continued to gather location information even with location services turned off resulted in both Kim’s successful suit and a three-million-won fine ($2,808 U.S.) from the South Korean communications regulator earlier this month. Apple has since released a software update that resolves the issues cited by Kim and security researchers who discovered the problem.

Even with nearly 27,000 thousand plaintiffs, the total cost of a ruling against Apple would only amount to around $24.6 million, which is barely a dent in the company’s $75.9 billion in cash reserves. But Apple is already facing multiple lawsuits in the U.S., too, and it probably doesn’t want this sort of thing to catch on.

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According to German news agency dpa, the Regional Court of Dusseldorf’s preliminary injunction states that Samsung must halt all sales and promotion of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the EU, thanks to a stipulation that allows companies to apply for a pan-European injunction that covers all EU member states. Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents says the injunction should take immediate effect in Germany, but additional formalities may be required before it takes effect elsewhere. The new Galaxy Tab 10.1 went on sale in Britain only last week, but Samsung might have to put it back in the box, at least until the company appeals the judgement, which will take four weeks time at the soonest.

Samsung has already had to delay its launch of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia, following similar legal wrangling by Apple. If Apple can make this and other decisions stick, this is going to put a serious kink in Samsung’s mobile ambitions. Rodman and Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar shared with us a research report that argues as much, saying Samsung won’t be able to successfully negotiate Apple’s IP blockade, and will have to go “back to the drawing board” to come up with its own IP. That was before this decision came down, so it actually looks even more plausible in light of the injunction.

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As part of the deal, Samsung agreed to stop advertising for the release of the Android-based Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia and not to sell the device until the lawsuit is resolved or until it is granted approval by the court to do so. Apple appears to have won Samsung’s cooperation by promising to pay unspecified Samsung damages, should Apple lose the larger patent-infringement suit.

Apple sought an injunction in the Australian court because it claims the Galaxy Tab 10.1 infringes 10 Apple patents, according to Apple lawyer Steven Burley’s statements to the court. The judge in the case set a hearing for Aug. 29 to determine a trial date, if one is deemed necessary. The Australian legal action brings the total number of Apple/Samsung ligation instances to 11 courts, in nine countries on four continents.

Patent blogger Florian Mueller told me in an email that he thinks the message should now be clear:

All observers of Apple’s disputes with Android device makers must increasingly realize that Apple’s strategy is clearly that of a company optimizing for product differentiation, not licensing revenues. Apple’s objective is to stop iPhone and iPad lookalikes altogether, and companies like HTC will be required to degrade the user experience of their differences in order to ensure the iOS user experience stays unique.

In other words, we aren’t likely to see the end of this kind of action anytime soon, especially now that the growth of smartphone hardware makers like Samsung and HTC threatens to bump Apple from its lofty new perch as the No. 1 global smartphone maker.

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The ITC is a government regulatory body, which acts independently of the courts. Apple seems to be gearing up for a preliminary injunction request in its legal case against Samsung in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, but it hasn’t sought any action from the ITC, unlike in previous cases against competing smartphone manufacturers such as HTC. Samsung’s move is a clever way to beat Apple to a potentially hobbling import ban, since the ITC’s decision is independent of the ongoing court case, and a final decision is reached within a fairly set time frame of 16 to 18 months, once the ITC agrees to investigate.

Apple is likely to respond with a complaint of its own, according to FOSS Patents’ Florian Mueller. Mueller says that Apple has to do so, “because otherwise Samsung might obtain an import ban against Apple long before Apple wins an injunction against Samsung.” The only reason that Apple hasn’t filed with the ITC already, Mueller says, is because doing so in its initial complaint with the U.S. courts “raises legal issues that go beyond the scope of an ITC investigation.”

Even though this action appears to raise the stakes in the ongoing patent dispute between the two companies, Mueller says it shouldn’t affect the likelihood of a settlement being reached by the two companies. It’s a common step in this kind of confrontation, and one which Apple is probably prepared for. Still, even though it isn’t very likely, there’s a small chance we could be living in a world where both Apple and Samsung smartphones aren’t available in the U.S. in a year or two. It’ll be like 2006 all over again.

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Mueller believes that even though Lodsys may oppose Apple’s motion to intervene, the Mac maker is likely to be admitted as a defendant, in which case it has already submitted its answer to Lodsys’ complaint of infringement, and its counterclaim. Apple also cites a number of other precedent-setting similar cases where tech companies were allowed to intervene in patent disputes, which back up and strengthen its motion. If Apple joins as a defendant, Mueller thinks it’s very likely it will take on any legal costs incurred by its developer partners.

Apple’s answer to the Lodsys complaint basically echoes what Apple General Counsel Bruce Sewell said in a public letter from the company to Lodsys, claiming Apple is licensed to use the patents, and that the license “expressly permits Apple to offer and otherwise make available to its Developers products and services that embody the inventions contained in the patents in suit.” Apple’s argument rents on the doctrines of patent exhaustion and first sale, which would allow the products and services provided by Apple to developers to be used free of any patent infringement claims. As Mueller has noted before, it isn’t necessarily an airtight defense against the claims made by Lodsys, but Apple appears to be sticking with it, rather than trying to invalidate the four patents held by Lodsys, as analysts firm ForeSee Results Inc. is attempting.

I talked to Mueller about why Apple is sticking so closely to this defense. He said, “Apple does a lot of inbound patent licensing,” and the Lodsys patents are actually part of a batch of “30,000 other patents from Intellectual Ventures” that it also licensed, and Apple also “regularly does license deals with many others.” It’s key that Apple win on these grounds, then, to avoid being made to pay twice for patents already licensed in other cases, too. In fact, as mocoNews points out, Apple states upfront that this case could have tremendous impact on its fortunes, when it says in its filing that “Apple’s interest is direct, very real, and of extraordinary importance to the continued success of Apple’s business.”

When asked how far he thinks this might escalate, Mueller said that while “usually the most probably outcome would be a settlement,” in this case it’s “possible that Apple makes this a matter of principle, with a view to many other cases in which patents that Apple has licensed might be asserted against iOS developers.” Apple would then want to score a precedent-setting win against Lodsys, rather than just agree to pay a settlement to make it quietly go away, in which case others could come calling looking for double-dip license payouts.

Since Lodsys clearly seems to have targeted small developers first in a district court that appears to decide quickly and historically favor patent holders with the aim of overwhelming the developers, it’s great to see Apple support those developers in a way that also offsets their financial burden. Mueller points out that one Android app is included in the current lawsuit, and Google has yet to act. “It’s important that Google make this a matter of principle and defend, alongside Apple, [...] and clarify what it will do if other Android app developers also get sued,” Mueller says.

Any company that depends on the support of third-party developers and makes use of software development toolkits will want to watch this case closely, because the outcome could have a significant impact on development as a whole.

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But ForeSee’s clients aren’t small app developers with limited means to defend against patent infringement claims and little choice but to agree to demands for licensing fees; they’re major companies with lots of capital and legal expertise at their disposal, including Adidas, Best Buy and WE Energies, and with this declaratory judgment filing, ForeSee has gone on the offensive against Lodsys on their behalf.

FOSSpatents’ Florian Mueller explains that a declaratory judgment, which doesn’t incur any penalties but is crucial to setting precedent, is a smart way to begin the process of potentially invalidating all of Lodsys’ patents. ForeSee filed suit in Illinois before Lodsys actually filed against any of its clients, too, which means that Lodsys doesn’t get to set the stage in the Eastern District of Texas, where the company has filed against iOS developers, and where the law favors the patent holder. Mueller also notes that McDermott Will & Emery, a “top-notch law firm that does a lot of work for major technologies” will be representing ForeSee. The law firm previously engineered a successful patent settlement for its client Creative Technology against Apple, in fact, resulting in a $100 million payday for Creative.

I asked Chicago tech and intellectual property attorney Evan Brown of Internet Cases what he thought about his filing, and he suggested that it could be a litmus test to see just how far Lodsys is willing to take this thing:

A declaratory judgment action like this gives Lodsys the chance to test its own resolve, whether it wanted to or not. We have to think that it considered the possibility of a declaratory judgment action (any reasonable party that sends a threatening letter should be ready for that risk). But given that Lodsys was generally targeting the smaller fish rather than Apple itself, one is left to think it may not have thought it through as much as it should have. Needless to say, Lodsys probably wishes things were going more smoothly for it, what with Apple’s swift and firm letter talking about patent exhaustion, and now this lawsuit. Maybe Lodsys might realize it’s better to actually use a technology rather than just sue others over it.

Apple’s response to Lodsys’ initial threats only prompted Lodsys to step up its timeframe and sue seven independent app developers ahead of schedule, and we’ve heard nothing from Cupertino on the subject since. But Craig Hockenberry, one of the developers behind Twitterific, tweeted just prior to WWDC that affected devs can’t talk about what’s going on, so presumably Apple is acting behind the scenes.

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James Thomson of TLA Systems was the first to discuss the threat early Friday morning, as reported by Cult of Mac. Thomson was targeted by the patent holder because of in-app purchases available to users of pCalc, an iOS scientific calculator app. Thomson reports that though he hasn’t been sued yet, the patent holder wants him to license their tech, and gave him 21 days to comply.

Thomson isn’t alone, either. Patrick McCarron, who creates apps for MobileAge, also confirmed receiving the same notice via FedEx early Friday. McCarron’s offending app was a game, so it seems like the company behind this is casting a wide net. Neither Thomson nor McCarron has yet to reveal the name of the company targeting them, though McCarron did assert that it’s not MacroSolve, a company that has been very active recently in enforcing its mobile technology patents.

Apple has been contacted by both devs, and will likely move quickly to respond to these threats in order to prevent widespread concern among the developer community. As of yet, Apple has yet to comment officially on this development. We reached out for comment, but have yet to hear back.

This kind of suit could provide a dangerous precedent, if not quickly quashed. Google and RIM recently introduced in-app purchasing, and presumably those systems would also be in violation of these patents. We’re working on discovering the source of the threats, and will update when more information becomes available.

UPDATE: The company behind the patent suit threats is apparently Lodsys, a patent holding firm which has held patent no. 7222078 (the one which is claimed to have been violated) since 2004. Lodsys cited the same patent, along with several others, when it filed suit against a number of major printer companies in early 2011, according to MacRumors.

Lodsys’ entire business consists of licensing the patents it holds, which is completely in keeping with the licensing demands developers have so far been receiving. If you feel like making your feelings about this latest round of threats known to Lodsys, you can contact the company directly via its official website.

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TheAppleBlog reported in October that Apple was the target of a Motorola lawsuit for infringement on 18 patents, including various smartphone issues, including antenna design. Holding to the idea that “the best defense is a good offense,” Apple not only isn’t taking that filing lightly, but is fighting back with a lawsuit of its own.

In a nine-page filing with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin on Friday, Apple asked for action in response to the violation of various patents surrounding the iPhone’s touch screen and user interface. Apple identified, among others, the Droid, Cliq, and Backflip handsets as culprits in the infringement. It states in the filed documents, “Motorola’s actions have caused and will continue to cause irreparable harm, for which it has no adequate remedy at law, unless their infringing activities are enjoined.”

To consumers, given the great number of lawsuits thrown around between technology companies of this size, the recent filings may not seem significant.  Usually, court rulings simply ask the defendant to pay a certain sum to the plaintiff, and the amount is generally quite small when measured against the profit margins of these companies.

As phones grow increasingly similar in design and user interface, and the tech related to them grows more refined, you have to wonder if the legal system will continue to allow companies to use such closely related designs for small penalties, or will instead more strongly defend the rights of patent holders.

With Apple’s recent move to number four on the global mobile-phone manufacturer list, and Motorola’s fall to number seven, it’s apparent both have great deal at stake in the market. Accordingly, the legal battles between the two (and among others) will likely continue to heat up as companies fight to secure IP that could give them the upper hand.

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