Samsung persuades US watchdog to review Smartflash legal dance over patents

What a feeling for $533m infringement-saddled Apple

Apple may end up getting a helping hand from its mega smartphone rival Samsung, after the South Korean electronics giant convinced US regulators to look at two Smartflash LLC patents.

In February, Cupertino was ordered to pay nearly half a billion dollars to Texas-based patent licensing company Smartflash after a jury found that Cupertino's iTunes music service had violated three patents.

Now, as noted by Bloomberg Business, the fact that watchdogs are sniffing around Smartflash could prove useful to Apple.

A review board at the US Patent and Trademark Office is reportedly reviewing a brace of Smartflash patents to mull over whether they should have been issued in the first place.

If the patents are chucked out by the regulators, then the $533m verdict against Apple earlier this year could be undermined. ®