Samsung Withdraws Injunction Requests Against Apple in Europe

Samsung has withdrawn its requests for injunctions against Apple for standards-essential patent infringement in Germany, the UK, France, Italy and the Netherlands, reports The Verge.

The company offered the following statement:

Samsung remains committed to licensing our technologies on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, and we strongly believe it is better when companies compete fairly in the marketplace, rather than in court. In this spirit, Samsung has decided to withdraw our injunction requests against Apple on the basis of our standard essential patents pending in European courts, in the interest of protecting consumer choice.


It's unclear why exactly Samsung is dropping the requests; however, early this year The European Commission opened a formal investigation to assess whether Samsung Electronics had abusively, and in contravention of a commitment it gave to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), used certain of its standard essential patent rights to distort competition in European mobile device markets, in breach of EU antitrust rules.

More recently, it's also been reported that South Korea's Fair Trade Commission is investing Samsung over Apple's complaints that it is abusing its dominant position in wireless technology.

Earlier today, it was reported that Apple's request for a permanent injunction on Samsung devices in the U.S. has been denied.

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