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Samsung drops Apple injunctions in Europe

Samsung has today announced it will drop its inunction requests against Apple for standards-essential patent infringement in Germany, the UK, France, Italy and the Netherlands.  In a statement given to The Verge, the manufacturer said:

The Verge Aaron Souppouris

Context & Ripple Effects

The Apple-Samsung patent fight had already produced a Europe-wide preliminary injunction against Galaxy smartphones and Samsung’s own effort to block iPhone 4S sales in France and Italy. The withdrawal narrows that European litigation contest across five national markets, even as the companies continue competing in smartphones.

First-order effects

  • Apple no longer faces Samsung’s pending standards-essential-patent injunction requests in Germany, the UK, France, Italy, and the Netherlands.
  • Samsung gives up a legal route that sought to restrict Apple product sales in those five markets.

Second-order effects

  • Apple’s European sales and retail partners gain clearer near-term operating conditions because these particular requests can no longer interrupt distribution.
  • Samsung must rely on litigation claims other than the withdrawn standards-essential-patent injunction requests to pressure Apple in the affected countries.

Third-order effects

  • The retreat limits the role of standards-essential patents as a cross-border tool for seeking product-sale bans, placing more weight on the narrower claims each side chooses to pursue.
  • If both companies continue to pull back from market-exclusion remedies, their patent conflict becomes less able to dictate which smartphones reach national retail channels.

The trend: The Apple-Samsung dispute is testing the limits of using standards-essential patents to turn technology licensing conflicts into cross-border sales bans.

Related: Apple · Samsung · Europe-wide Galaxy smartphone injunction · Samsung seeks iPhone 4S sales ban in France and Italy

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