Apple is stepping up its offensive against Samsung Electronics by revising a lawsuit to target the Korean firm's newest flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S3, Galaxy Note and Galaxy Note 10.1.

Bloomberg News reported on Friday that Apple amended the suit in the Northern District Court of California.

Apple's previous complaints focused on the older Galaxy models, so even a ban was unlikely to make a massive dent in Samsung's sales. But the amended suit targets either the latest models or global bestsellers.

It centers on eight patented technologies for built-in functions related to search and phone number display.

Industry insiders believe a ban of the Galaxy S3 is unlikely. The first patent-infringement trial lasted 16 months from the initial filing until the jury's decision, so a ruling in the second lawsuit is not expected until the middle of next year, when there is a strong chance that Samsung will have rolled out a newer model.

Experts believe the aim of the amended suit is to stall Samsung's momentum as the most successful smartphone maker in the world.

The decision last month by a jury in the same court that Samsung copied the designs of the iPhone and iPad has been widely criticized. Some of the jurors have said that other members of the jury failed to consider "prior art," i.e. that there were other products with similar designs before Apple's products. The jury foreman was the owner of a mobile communications patent, which raised concerns about neutrality.

"The additional lawsuits appear to be an attempt to continue the offensive against Samsung to gain the upper hand before the dust settles from the earlier jury decision," says patent attorney Lee Chang-hoon.

Samsung started supplying the Galaxy S3 in early August to the top five mobile providers in the U.S. Its share of the North American smartphone market rose from 20.2 percent in the fourth quarter 2011 to 23.4 percent in the second quarter of this year, and is expected to balloon to 30 percent in the third quarter thanks to the Galaxy S3.

Market researcher IDC believe Apple's share of the U.S. market declined because it was slow to release new products and failed to catch up with the latest market trends, including wider screens and 4G standards.

"It's a pity that lawsuits are being favored over market competition and innovation," a Samsung spokesman said. "We plan to take legal measures to ensure that customers face no problems in choosing Samsung's innovative products."