Edible Apple

Perhaps in an effort to avoid negative publicity on its home turf, Samsung pulled an about-face when it announced that it will not seek to ban sales of the iPhone 4S in South Korea.

“We concluded that we should engage in legal battles with Apple only in the global market, but not in order to gain more market share in Korea,” a Samsung official explained.

The decision not to go after the iPhone 4S in South Korea was reportedly made at the last minute and perhaps suggests that taking it easy on Apple in Samsung’s home country isn’t universally popular with all of the top brass at Samsung.

Regardless, Samsung isn’t lacking for jurisdictions to go after Apple. The two companies are currently embroiled in litigation across a number continents with Samsung recently trying, albeit unsuccessfully, to ban the sale of the iPhone 4S in countries like Italy and Australia.

The Next Web reports:

Samsung stated its intention to try to ban the sale of the phone in Korea back in the middle of October. While it never took things further in Korea, it did file a legal case in Australia which has caused plenty of controversy after Apple was forced to reveal the terms of its deals with Australian operators.

The ongoing global legal spat between the duo recently took a significant turn with the news that the European Commission, the legislative body of the European Union,is investigating Samsung for a possible abuse of FRAND licensing. The outcome has the potential to force the Korean firm to drop its litigation cases in Europe.

Still, Samsung, like Apple, has launched a full frontal legal assault and is asserting a number of its 3G patents in the hopes of banning the sale of Apple iPhones and iPads in multiple countries. Recently, Apple handed over iPhone 4S sourcecode to Samsung so that Samsung can examine Apple’s implementation of 3G technologies. A Samsung expert will have access to said code for about 2 hours after which it will be returned to Apple.