Samsung and Apple announced in a joint statement that they will drop all ongoing patent lawsuits outside the U.S. However, the smartphone rivals have not yet settled the dispute. The two companies have sued each other in a total of eight countries viz, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Netherlands, the UK, France, and Italy, and all these cases are being dropped, without being settled and without any cross-licensing agreements being negotiated.
“Apple and Samsung have agreed to drop all litigation between the two companies outside the United States. This agreement does not involve any licensing arrangements, and the companies are continuing to pursue the existing cases in U.S. courts.”
read the joint statement from both the companies.
Their dispute started in 2011, when Apple first sued Samsung in the U.S. for copying features of the iPhone. In the U.S., Apple had biggest victory against Samsung with $930 million in August 2012. While the second one came in May this year when the Jurors concluded that Samsung owed Apple only $119.6 million in damages for violating three patents, far below the $2 billion that it had demanded in total. They also decided that Apple owed Samsung $158,400 for violating two patents.
via:Bloomberg