Samsung Drops Injunction Requests Against Apple in Europe
In yet another development in the worldwide patent battle between Apple and Samsung, The Verge reports that Samsung has dropped its requests for injunctions barring the sale of a number of Apple products in Europe. Samsung has accused Apple of infringing several standards-essential patents related to cellular technology and has been pursuing both sales bans and monetary damages. Samsung's statement reads:
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.
While Samsung is portraying its move as an altruistic one focused on "protecting consumer choice", the company has been under scrutiny from the European Commission over potential antitrust issues related to licensing the standards-essential patents it owns.

Standards-essential patents are required to be licensed under FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) terms in order to promote competition. The requirement is aimed at preventing a single company from controlling an entire industry by refusing to license patents critical to building a competing product. Apple's lawyers have argued, however, that Samsung's offers for licensing its 3G-related patents have not been reasonable.
Apple has been pushing for greater clarification of how patents subject to FRAND terms should be licensed, and has been one of a number of parties to argue that standards-essential patents should not be used as the basis for requests for sales injunctions as the patents are intended to be licensed.
Popular Stories
The iPhone 15 Pro Max will have the thinnest bezels of any smartphone, beating the record currently held by the Xiaomi 13. That's according to the leaker known as "Ice Universe," who has divulged accurate information about Apple's plans in the past.
Both iPhone 15 Pro models are expected to have thinner, curved bezels compared to the iPhone 14 Pro, potentially resulting in an Apple...
While year-over-year iPhone upgrades are not always groundbreaking, new features can begin to stack up over multiple generations. For example, the iPhone 15 Pro will be a notable upgrade for those who still have a three-year-old iPhone 12 Pro.
If you are still using an iPhone 12 Pro and are considering upgrading to the iPhone 15 Pro when it launches later this year, we have put together a...
While the iPhone 15 lineup is around six months away, there have already been plenty of rumors about the devices. Many new features and changes are expected for the iPhone 15 Pro models in particular, including a titanium frame and more.
Below, we have recapped 11 features rumored for iPhone 15 Pro models that are not expected to be available on the standard iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus:A17...
Apple's high-end iPhone models have started at $999 in the U.S. since they first launched back in 2017 with the iPhone X, but could this finally be the year that starting price sees an increase?
This week also saw some more rumors about Apple's upcoming headset and the company's explorations in the booming AI industry as well as the release of a new round of beta updates, so read on for all...
Apple's next-generation iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max will likely be more expensive than previous Pro models, according to Jeff Pu, a tech analyst at Hong Kong-based investment firm Haitong International Securities.
In a research note this week, Pu predicted the iPhone 15 Pro models will see a price increase due to several rumored hardware upgrades, including a titanium frame,...
A first-generation iPhone still sealed inside its box sold for $54,904 at auction, which is more than $54,000 over the original $599 price tag of the device when it was released in 2007.
The original iPhone was put up for sale by RR Auction on behalf of a former Apple employee who purchased it back when it first came out. Back in February, an original, sealed iPhone sold for over $63,000,...
Top Rated Comments
Who to trust?
I just want the companies to get back to producing kick *** phones and devices.
I believe Motorola is already being investigated.
Funny, everywhere I've read is spinning this story against Samsung for making such a ridiculous statement - 'in the interest of protecting consumer choice'.
Give me some places that are spinning this against Apple.
This is a load of bollocks.
;) :rolleyes:
- Samsung oem some 3G patents that Broadcom licensed, Apple uses the licensed Broadcom chips and now Samsung says that from all companies that uses the Broadcom chips, Apple should pay more and the other companies not.
- Apple innovate in physical design and GUI, Samsung blatantly copied both, and Samsung says it should be allowed to copy and don't pay.