In the ongoing feud between Samsung and Apple, it looks like one of these companies has found a new friend. That company is Apple and the friend is Nokia. It seems Nokia has recently filed a brief in support of Apple and as a result has become the only outside group to come forward in support of the appeal. The interesting part here is that Apple had sued Nokia back in 2009. The companies later settled in 2011 and as a result, Apple had to pay Nokia royalties.

Previous history aside, Nokia filed this brief earlier in the week at the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington. The full brief is still sealed, however Reuters is reporting that details from an accompanying summary have Nokia arguing that the “trial court judge got it wrong when she denied Apple’s request for a permanent injunction.”

Further details from that summary touch on the “casual nexus” statement that we heard from Judge Koh at the time of the ruling. If you look back, Judge Koh was noted as saying that; “Neither statements about broad categories, nor evidence of copying, nor the conjoint survey provides sufficiently strong evidence of causation.” She then went on to note that “without a casual nexus, this court cannot conclude that the irreparable harm supports entry of an injunction.”

Anyway, this summary is arguing that such a rule “could cause wide-ranging damage to the United States patent protection landscape.” Samsung’s brief is not due for another few weeks. Otherwise, for those trying to keep track of exactly which case this involves — this is the one where Apple was originally awarded $1.05 billion and then later had that cut by $450 million. Bottom line here, this battle looks to be far from over.

[via Reuters]