Verizon urges court not to grant Apple injunction against Samsung devices

Network operator Verizon Wireless has sided with Samsung in asking a US court to prevent Apple getting a preliminary injunction against the Korean manufacturer's products.

Verizon is not a part of the patent infringement dispute between Apple and Samsung, but has voluntarily filed a legal document known as an Amicus Curiae, which allows the company to provide information for the court to consider.

The operator claims in the filing that granting a preliminary injunction against Samsung will cause substantial harm to consumers and Verizon.

"Consumers cannot benefit from the billions of dollars that Verizon Wireless has invested in its next-generation network unless they can purchase and use 4G devices compatible with that network," the operator said in the filing.

"For example, Verizon Wireless markets five 4G handsets for use on its next-generation LTE network. One of those is the Samsung Droid Charge, which is a target of the motion. Thus, a preliminary injunction would severely decrease customers' options if they want to use Verizon Wireless's LTE network."

The operator pointed out that the Samsung 4G Galaxy Tab 10.1 is the first 4G tablet available in the US, and that an injunction would force tablet buyers to choose a non-4G device. This would also decrease the rate at which LTE services are adopted, Verizon argued.

Verizon also claims that, by decreasing the number of available 4G devices, fewer consumers and businesses will have access to high-speed networks. This will hinder a key policy goal of the US government, which has promised to invest in LTE infrastructure, and could even have an impact on job creation, the filing said.

Florian Mueller, a software patent specialist, suggested that Apple will oppose Verizon's brief and should be able to find several flaws in its logic.

"Verizon probably hopes that the court - but also all those watching this process, including in Washington DC - will take note of the fact that the leading US mobile network operator sides with Samsung and raises concerns about the economy and the job market," he said.

"For Samsung this is definitely good news regardless of the weak and flawed substance of Verizon's filing and the transparency of its Google-aligned agenda."

Verizon only started selling the iPhone 4 at the beginning of 2011, AT&T having had the US monopoly on the smartphone since 2007.

It will be interesting to see what steps Apple takes given Verizon's siding with Samsung and to a certain extent Google, and whether the next-generation iPhone will be made available on the network.