Many of Samsung's recent legal tussles have had Apple on the other side, but now the Galaxy device maker is the target of a lawsuit from a different company in the mobile space. As noted by Reuters, Ericsson has filed a patent infringement suit against Samsung in District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, which is where Ericsson's U.S. arm is headquartered. Ericsson says that it has decided to go after Samsung in court after the two firms failed to renew a patent licensing agreement during two years of negotiations, with Samsung reportedly refusing to license Ericsson's patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. A statement from Kasim Alfalahi, Chief Intellectual Property Officer at Ericsson, is as follows:

"Ericsson has over 30,000 patents and more than 100 license agreements with all major players in the industry. Ericsson has tried long and hard to amicably come to an agreement with Samsung and to sign a license agreement on FRAND terms. We have turned to litigation as a last resort."

In response to Ericsson's lawsuit, Samsung has issued a statement of its own:

"Samsung has faithfully committed itself to conducting fair and reasonable negotiations with Ericsson over the past two years, but Ericsson has demanded prohibitively higher royalty rates to renew the same patent portfolio."

Samsung added that it will "take all necessary legal measures" to protect itself from what it feels are "excessive claims" from Ericsson. Obviously it's too early to tell how this case will play out, but considering that Samsung agreed to license Ericsson's patents twice in the past, it'll be interesting to see if the two companies can come to some sort of settlement and form another licensing agreement or if they'll take this legal battle as far as it'll go. Stay tuned.

Via Ericsson, Reuters