Every year, Samsung and Apple try to outdo each other in innovation, in the rival companies' quest for market dominance. Now it appears Samsung is planning to create its own pressure sensitive touchscreen, a la the Apple iPhone 6s's 3D Touch, when it releases its next flagship, the Samsung Galaxy S7, next spring.

That's according to a leak from "people familiar with the matter" reported by the Wall Street Journal this week. TechCrunch aptly named it the "game of clones," in which Samsung is rumored to copy Apple's pressure sensitive 3D Touch feature in its next flagship smartphone.

3D Touch, originally billed as Force Touch by Apple when it introduced an early version of the feature in its Apple Watch, adds a new layer of user interaction with touchscreen devices. Rather than having to tap on an on-screen button, for example, to preview a text message, website, or email, iPhone 6s users can press on the screen slightly harder than a normal tap.

The feature is still new, and most developers have yet to incorporate 3D Touch's two additional levels of interaction, "Pop" and "Peek." Apple's touchscreen innovation is at a similar stage as Samsung's introduction of the "Edge" -- a curved touchscreen on each vertical edge of the 2015 Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge and S6 Edge+. Both 2015 touchscreen innovations promise new dimensions of user interaction, but both are so new that the creative possibilities haven't been fleshed out yet.

But if the anonymously sourced WSJ report is correct, Samsung clearly sees the potential in its chief rival's new pressure sensitive touchscreen, and is wasting no time to work up its own version.

Also included in the report, some hardware specs: the Samsung Galaxy S7 (and its Edge variant) will purportedly be the first from the Korean Android device manufacturer to include the new reversible, fast-charging USB Type-C port, which is reported to fill a full day's charge on the device in under 30 minutes.

The next Samsung flagship is also reportedly going to feature a low-light optimized camera with a lens that doesn't bulge out of the back of the device. Along with an improved camera, Samsung is rumored to bring back a feature whose absence in the 2015 Samsung Galaxy S6 frustrated some long-time users: the MicroSD card slot.

Although the report came from the Wall Street Journal, take these specs, and the possibility of a pressure sensitive touchscreen, with a grain of salt, since nothing has been officially confirmed yet.

We'll likely have to wait until the Mobile World Congress -- the tradeshow where Samsung traditionally unveils its flagship for the year -- in February 2016, before these possibilities are confirmed.