Samsung Sues Apple in U.K. Following U.S. IPhone Patent Suit

June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s largest maker of computer memory chips, sued Apple Inc. in the U.K. on the same day it filed a U.S. lawsuit alleging the company’s iPhone and iPad devices infringe its patents.

The lawsuit, filed yesterday in the High Court in London, joins another filed in federal court in Delaware and a June 28 complaint to the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington that seek to block imports of the Apple devices.

Litigation between the companies, which compete in the mobile-device market, is now under way in at least five countries. In April, Cupertino, California-based Apple sued Samsung in federal court in Oakland, California, alleging the company’s Galaxy phone and tablet computers “slavishly” copy the iPhone and iPad. Apple also has a case pending against Samsung in its home country of South Korea.

Samsung, which supplies memory chips to Apple, had previously sued Apple in Seoul, Tokyo, San Francisco and Mannheim, Germany.

Trudy Muller, an Apple spokeswoman, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment on the suit.

--With assistance from Susan Decker in Washington and Jef Feeley in Wilmington. Editors: Christopher Scinta, Robert Valpuesta

To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in London at elarson4@bloomberg.net.

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To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net.