Ok, so we have some more information on the ongoing patent wars between Apple and Samsung. According to a report by FOSS Patents, Samsung is no longer seeking any action against Apple for 3G devices using Qualcomm baseband chips (specifically, the iPhone 4S), implying that Apple is covered for the use of the technology through their use of Qualcomm chipsets, which is licensed.

Apparently, Samsung made this move to “streamline a particular lawsuit”, which would have been slowed down by the iPhone 4S issue.

More importantly, Samsung is now suing Apple over four more patents, in the Mannheim court. The four new patents, include two FRAND telecom patents (which Samsung will have to license to Apple should it win) and patents on:

• “speech output device for data displayed on mobile telephone converts data from display into speech data for output via loudspeaker”

• “emoticon input method for mobile terminal”

Initially, in the patent wars, Apple was mostly on the offensive, and saw a series of minor victories. But lately, Motorola and Samsung have seen a few wins too.

Motorola recently won a patent ruling against Apple in the very same Mannheim court in Germany, while Samsung got the ban of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet revoked in Australia, just in time for the Christmas shopping season.