Samsung have dropped the injunction applications against Apple in five European countries. This is a major development in a long running patents battle between the two companies.

Samsung will drop injunction applications in Germany, France, Italy, UK and the Netherlands, a senior executive told The Wall Street Journal. It will continue to target Apple in Europe with lawsuits however.

Samsung and Apple have been battling for a long time now over standard-essential patents in Europe and America.  Samsung have focused their lawsuits on technology patents, rather than those covering design, which has been Apple's stance. Samsung lost over $1 billion in America this year, but other countries have sided in their favour.

A judge has denied Apple's request to ban some Samsung products in the U.S. Market.

Samsung said “Samsung remains committed to licensing our technologies on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory 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.”

A spokesperson for the company said “What we are dropping are our injunction applications, but this does not mean we are dropping our lawsuits in Europe where we allege infringements on our products. Those cases in Europe are still ongoing.”

Withdrawal in those European countries was “unilateral and voluntary” according to a Samsung executive. You can read more on this here.

Kitguru says: Will this battle ever end?

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