Samsung is one of the biggest targets of patent lawsuits filed by NPEs (non-practicing entities), which you may know colloquially as "patent trolls." These companies obtain and hold patents, but do not manufacture any products. Their only goal is to profit from licensing agreements, and above all from patent-related lawsuits.
Samsung is certainly no stranger to dealing with companies that practice these patent lawsuits. According to data shared by the Korea Intellectual Property Protection Agency (via The Korea Times) in the last three years in the United States, Samsung has been sued for patent infringement 403 times. In contrast, LG Electronics faced 199 cases in the same three-year period.
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Samsung's former vice president filed 10 patent lawsuits against it
Although Samsung is one of the most frequently "trolled" companies, it is somewhat unexpected that its former executive will also file a lawsuit. Let alone ten lawsuits. But in an unexpected turn of events, the latest lawsuits facing the company were filed by former vice president Ahn Seung-ho, who served as Samsung's U.S. patent attorney from 2010 to 2019.
But he founded a new company called Synergy IP, and as you may have guessed, this is a typical NPE, i.e. a company that holds patents but has no products of its own. According to the sources, the ten patent lawsuits filed against Samsung relate to wireless audio technologies that the company uses in virtually every product, from smartphones to wireless headphones and IoT devices with Bixby technology.
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