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As the final rulings are reached in Apple’s case against Samsung in the US, the latter company is rethinking its litigation strategy in Europe. Today Samsung released a statement saying they would withdraw injunction requests against Apple in Europe. Samsung cites “protecting consumer choice” as a driving force behind the decision.
The real reason might go a bit deeper than simply “protecting consumer choice,” but Samsung is framing their decision so as to say “we’re taking the high road.” Perhaps it signals a shift in Samsung’s mentality towards reaching an out-of-court agreement (the company did, after all, say it was open to negotiating a settlement with Apple). Perhaps the Korean company is feeling the blows of one too many unfavorable court decisions.
The injunctions in question were based on Samsung’s standards-essential patents, which have proven tricky to litigate in the past. Currently, such patents are to be licensed under fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms. Groups including Apple and the European Commission have questioned in the past if Samsung has been abusing such patents.
A recent decision in a dispute between Motorola and Microsoft set a precedent to forego injunctions for standards-based patents in favor of FRAND-based fees. The complication in seeking an injunction on such patents arrises from their use of certain openly available standards, such as a video codec or wireless format. It was determined that given the availability of such technology to all, it could not be proven that infringement had caused irreparable harm.
[via The Verge]
Samsung dropped the induction requests against [insert name here] in Europe?
Anyhow…
Hopefully we are seeing the end of this nonsense.
*injunction :P
Could you PLEASE stop using the android launcher to ipad desktop side-by-side pic that for whatever reason gets recycled just about every time anything in this area comes up? The default desktop on android doesn’t look like that at all (as you well know), so it’s quite misleading.
Thank you for saying that! The Galaxy Tab looks COMPLETELY different from the iPad with its Touchwiz’d launcher.
Actually, this image is a proof that the Galaxy Tab is different, even with the app drawer opened…
The iPad: 4×5 icons grid; 4 icons dock; status bar at the top; physical navigation button…
G. Tab: 5×7 icons grid; no dock; status bar at the bottom; on-screen navigation buttons…
Yeah, c’mon Phandroid, take your own fair comparison photos, instead of using bogus stock images. I’m sure you have at least one iPad in the office…
Only way apple makes money anymore is in court lieing to people saying they first thought of it… Even tho everything for the most part in that iPad is Samsung
Proofread your stinking titles at least!