Patent trolls are making Samsung’s life hell with garbage lawsuits
It’s not uncommon for major companies to face frivolous lawsuits from entities looking to basically extort them for money. Samsung’s no different, but baseless lawsuits against the company have increased considerably in recent years. The entities that file such lawsuits are commonly referred to as patent trolls.
Patent trolls are reportedly buying up patents with broad technological scopes, aiming to seek application against home appliance, smartphone, semiconductor, and telecommunications equipment products. As Samsung is one of the largest suppliers of such products, it’s naturally become a prime target for these trolls.
Samsung isn’t scared of fighting these trash lawsuits
An analysis conducted by Unified Patents reveals that 404 patent infringement lawsuits have been filed against Samsung Electronics in the United States over the past five years alone. More than half of these cases, 208 to be precise, were filed by Non-Practicing Entities, or entities that haven’t actively been conducting business.
A simple comparison against similar lawsuits filed against other major leading companies shows a clear trend to target Samsung. From 2019-2023, 168 cases were filed against Google, 142 against Apple, and 74 against Amazon, compared to 404 against Samsung.
In a recent patent infringement lawsuit filed against Samsung by KP Innovations, only the Korean giant has been targeted as a manufacturer of foldable phones, even though similar devices are made by many other companies such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Google, and Motorola. Yet this entity chose to only pursue a lawsuit against Samsung.
Samsung doesn’t shy away from these legal challenges and pursues these challenges to their logical conclusion. The company has also increased its patent application filings, it has for years filed the most patent applications of any company in the United States, including in 2023, where more than 9,000 patents were filed by the various entities in the conglomerate.
