Samsung Seeks Injunction to Block Sales of iPhone 4S in France, Italy

The wraps are barely off Apple's new iPhone 4S and already it's the target of litigation.  Samsung is seeking an injunction blocking the sale of the new iPhone in France and Italy as a trademark-infringement war between the once-friendly companies escalates.

The companies been in an acrimonious battle over the design and patents within the Samsung Tablet devices, each accusing the other of various offenses.

Samsung now says Apple's violations are so severe that the iPhone 4S should be barred from sales and warns that its injunction requests may spread to other nations.

"Apple has continued to flagrantly violate our intellectual property rights and free ride on our technology. We believe it is now necessary to take legal action to protect our innovation." Samsung said in a statement.

Samsung added that it plans to file preliminary injunctions in other countries after further review.

Introduced yesterday

Apple CEO Tim Cook, who officially took over earlier this year for the ailing Steve Jobs, unveiled the 4S at the company's headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., yesterday.

One of the biggest improvements in the new phone is in the processor, an A5 chip. Another is its voice recognition capabilities with a software called Siri. For example, by holding down the “home” button, you can ask your iPhone “what will the weather be like today?” The app responds “here is today's forecast.”

Siri will understand three languages to start but, oddly, Spanish isn't one of them. Apple says it will start with English, French and German.