So the Apple – Samsung patent saga is still on. As we had reported earlier, Samsung had sued Apple in Germany ^[1], claiming infringement of some of its telecom and 3G patents. Two of those patents were essential FRAND patents, which made it likely that Apple would be found infringing them.

However, a week ago, Germany’s Mannheim Regional Court threw out a lawsuit by Samsung claiming patent infringement of a 3G/UMTS wireless patent by Apple, for reasons which weren’t very clear at the time of the ruling.

Today, Samsung suffered yet another setback in its patent battles against Apple in Germany. Mannheim Regional Court has rejected a second lawsuit by Samsung ^[2] too, without stating any specific reason. Even this lawsuit was related to a 3G/UMTS patent owned by Samsung.

Samsung can still appeal the decision in a higher regional court, but it hasn’t made any such announcements yet. It has a couple of lawsuits against Apple still pending, but given the results of these two, it’s likely that they won’t hold as well.

In the meanwhile, Apple currently seems to be winning the patent wars against Samsung. It recently filed more design lawsuits against 10 smartphones and 5 tablets by Samsung ^[3]. In Australia, it even filed a lawsuit claiming that Samsung had copied the Smart Cover for the iPad ^[4].