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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Apple, Samsung Bury Hatchet Outside the U.S.

(CN) - Apple and Samsung will end their contentious worldwide patent war everywhere but in the United States, the companies said in a joint statement late Monday.

"Samsung and Apple have agreed to drop all litigation between the two companies outside the United States," the companies said. "This agreement does not involve any licensing arrangements, and the companies are continuing to pursue the existing cases in U.S. courts."

Since the tech giants first sued each other over iPhone, iPad and Galaxy smartphones and tablets in 2011, the results have become increasingly mixed for both sides.

While a California jury handed Apple a $1 billion verdict in 2012 - which a federal judge halved due to jury error - and Samsung faced sales bans in Germany, the Netherlands and Australia, a trial over newer products ended with a paltry $120 million verdict for Apple this past May and courts in Japan and South Korea sided with Samsung.

Both companies have appealed various aspects of the U.S. verdicts to the Federal Circuit.

Meanwhile, Samsung promised regulators in the EU to stop using the courts there to wage war on other tech companies over smartphone and tablet patents in order to avoid an antitrust investigation for refusing to license standard essential patents, or SEPs, on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) terms.

The Justice Department dropped a similar investigation into the South Korean company earlier this year.

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