Samsung and Apple have a complicated love-hate relationship. Samsung is a supplier of critical flash memory to Apple, yet both spend billions of dollars litigating over the very product that the flash memory becomes a part of. Samsung's unique position as a critical supplier to Apple gave it valuable, non-public insights into how large Apple projected the smartphone/tablet market to be. This inside information has spurred Samsung to spend massive amounts of money on capital expenditures and acquiring assets for its manufacturing business ($21 billion in 2012)
After a handful of generations of failed hardware and outspending Apple 2:1 on capex, Samsung finally developed a viable competitor to the iPhone in the Galaxy S3. However, Apple's lean and efficient product development team and limited product line has managed to maintain dominance of the domestic U.S. smartphone market, while Samsung's 37 diversified and affordable products have seized control over emerging markets. Is there any legal recourse for Apple, given that Samsung appears to have taken advantage of non public information in its rapid development of the iPhone competitors?
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