Samsung has said that it will be filing for the preliminary injunction requests for a ban on iPhone 4S sales with courts in France and Italy since the phone infringed its patents.

In addition to this, the company has stated that it would file for a sales ban in other countries after further review. This is part of a wider battle between the two companies that has come up in court rooms across four continents.

Earlier Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S Tuesday, a major upgrade over its previous iPhone 4 model, with iOS 5, iCloud and Siri. The iPhone 4S will be available Oct. 14 in the United States, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan and the UK.

Apple and Samsung are quickly becoming serious rivals in the smartphone and tablet business. Earlier Apple had claimed that Samsung had infringed patents for its iPhone and iPad in Australia.

Samsung had agreed to withdraw two more controversial features from their product, which purportedly violated Apple's patents. As a result of this agreement, their dispute in Australia has been cut down to that over aspects of touch-screen display technology.

Last week Samsung made a proposal to Apple in order to resolve their patent dispute in Australia concerning touch-screen technology. The proposal from Samsung was an attempt to end the dispute over patent technology in Australia that has restrained it from selling its Galaxy 10.1 tablet in the country. Apple rejected the offer that would have allowed the latter to release its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in Australia.

The increasing demand for Samsung-built devices has led Apple to resort to suing Samsung and seeking to stop sales worldwide. Samsung has responded by seeking a ban on the sales of Apple's iPhone 4S, charging that the iPhones and the iPad 2 are violating the multiple wireless technology patents it holds.

Previously, Samsung announced that it had sold more than 10 million units of the Galaxy S2 smartphone since its launch in April. The sales rate, however, pales in comparison to that for the iPhone 4, which hit 1.7 million in three days. Nevertheless, Samsung is certainly Apple's most serious competitior.

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