Apple files complaint against Samsung

Apple Inc has filed a U.S. trade complaint to block Samsung Electronics Co from importing a variety of electronic devices, less than one week after Samsung sought to stop imports of Apple’s popular iPads and iPhones.

The complaint filed Tuesday with the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington, D.C. escalates a patent infringement battle also being waged in South Korea, where Samsung is based.

Apple began the fight, contending in an April 15 complaint filed in a San Jose, California federal court that Samsung’s Galaxy line of tablets and mobile phones infringed several patents and “slavishly” copied its iPads and iPhones.

“Samsung chose to copy Apple, not to innovate,” Apple said in a court filing. It said Samsung is trying to trade off Apple’s popularity by calling products, such as the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet and Galaxy S 4G smartphone, “just like an iPad” or “just like an iPhone.”

But Samsung countered that Apple infringed five patents, and asked the ITC to block imports of such products as the iPhone 4, iPad 2 3G and iPod Touch.

Galaxy products use Google Inc.’s Android operating system, which competes with Apple’s mobile software.

Apple had in 2010 been Samsung’s second-largest customer, accounting for $5.7 billion of sales tied mainly to semiconductors, according to Samsung’s annual report.

Sony Corp is Samsung’s largest customer.