The ongoing legal battle between Samsung Electronics and Apple for a larger share of the Australian techie market escalated further on Tuesday after the South Korean firm sought a look into Apple's deals with major Australian telcos.

Samsung also demanded for the source code of Apple's iPhone 4S in a bid to ban the sale of the newest Apple smartphone in Australia over alleged violation of three Samsung wireless 3G patents.

Samsung lawyer Cynthia Cochrane told Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett the firm needs the iPhone 4S source code and agreements with Vodafone, Telsta and Optus to find out how much subsidies the telcos pay for selling iPhones on plans, ZD Net reports.

Ms Bennett is the same judge who issued a temporary ban on the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia.

"It goes to show that since the iPhone 3G was made available in Australia in July 2008, the impact on the market for every iPhone product has been significant, and has led to a substantial increase... in market share by revenue," Smartoffice quoted Ms Cochrane.

Apple denied it infringed Samsung's patent and claimed that the South Korean firm agreed to license the three patents under the Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory terms standard. Apple argued that it is free to use the patents because it bought the Qualcomm chips which came with a licence from Samsung.

Samsung said the international agreement does not include Australia and that Apple thumbed down its invitation to license the three patents.

Apple, in turn, demanded to see Samsung's contract with Qualcomm to be able to respond to the South Korean firm's charge that it breached Samsung's patents.

Ms Bennett will resume hearing the lawsuit on Friday.

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