Less than a day after the launch of the iPhone 4S, Samsung yesterday launched a bid to ban sales of the newly released Apple iPhone 4 successor in France and Italy.

Samsung has said that it will be filing patent infringement cases in France and Italy against iPhone 4S.

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Samsung said it would target Apple in France over encoding of a signal-transmission format and a method for correcting encoding errors.

In Italy, the Korean tech giant is looking to challenge Apple over its signal-transmission forma,t and the method used by the handset for bundling low bursts of data into more efficient transmission.

Reuters reported Samsung's statement on its legal action, which claimedt: "Apple has continued to flagrantly violate our intellectual property rights and free-ride on our technology."

The timing of Samsung's legal move was guaranteed to grab headlines, as the tech world was still digesting the previous day's launch event and iPhone 4S was still in the forefront of everyone's mind.

Patent infringement lawsuits have become a routine between the two tech heavyweights, and it seems neither of them will give up easily. So far, Apple hasn't commented on the Samsung statement.

Tags: legal patent dispute apple iphone 4 samsung