Examining the Legal Issues Ahead for Apple

There’s not often a dull period of news for Apple, but since the iPhone 4S release and passing of Steve Jobs, things have been a bit quieter than usual for the company. Several interesting products are being predicted for release in 2012, but at the moment, new product details remain quite speculative.

Instead, the most intriguing events firmly set on Apple’s horizon are legal challenges. Many are patent related, and the opponents range from HTC to Samsung to Amazon meaning there is the potential for Apple to take a hit in several of its primary product verticals.

While no one result will likely be overly damaging to Apple, it’s worth considering the impact a series of losses might have on investor confidence given the significance of each competitor. HTC recently claimed the largest share of the US smartphone market, Amazon’s Kindle is showing the fastest growth by a tablet since the original iPad, and any ground given to Motorola Mobility is ultimately a gain by rival Google.

Do you see any of these events really troubling to Apple? Is there an area of interest would you like to see similarly mapped out? The same type of query can be replicated for other individual companies or across the whole of an industry, so we can look at legal issues during the next twelve months for all PC makers. We’ll take a look if you leave a note in the comments, or try it out yourself with a free trial of Recorded Future.