 "Samsung sues LG in South Korea for allegedly tarnishing brand image")
If you were Samsung, you’d be forgiven for thinking no one liked you. After the prolonged and still ongoing patent battle with Apple in the US and around the world, Samsung has now filed a lawsuit in its home country against LG, demanding $45 million in compensation for denting its brand value, the Korean Herald reports. This suit has been filed with the Seoul Southern District Court in response to another that was filed by LG some months ago.
In its suit, LG had argued for $9 million in compensation against Samsung following controversial YouTube advertisements that compared the size of Samsung’s refrigerators to LG’s. The video, posted by Samsung last August and titled “Inconvenient truth about refrigerator capacity”, shows the capacity of Samsung’s own refrigerator compared to a rival LG refrigerator by pouring water and putting small cans into the two refrigerators. LG subsequently released its own online advertisements condemning Samsung, in addition to the lawsuit.
The next round
Court records show Samsung claiming that LG had “tarnished its corporate image” by distributing advertisements that misconstrued facts as part of its advertising strategy.
LG and Samsung have been sitting on a powder keg for the past couple of months, taking potshots at each other. LG famously photo-bombed Samsung’s Galaxy S4 advertising campaign in New York before it was launched. And then LG announced a new software feature for its new flagship the Optimus G Pro, which is slightly similar to TouchWiz’s Smart Pause functionality. LG claims that it applied for a number of eye-recognition patents back in August 2009 and will reportedly review any possible patent infringements when the Galaxy S4 is finally out in the markets next month.
The two companies’ display divisions, Samsung Display and LG Display, were also involved in a bitter patent suit over OLED screen technology. Samsung suspected that some of its researchers leaked details of the OLED technology to LG, which has been used in displays for mobile phones, tablets and TVs. However, Samsung dropped the lawsuit earlier this month after discussions with LG.
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