Samsung no longer asking for European injunction against Apple

One day after Judge Lucy Koh ruled Samsung's phones wouldn't be banned in the U.S., the South Korean manufacturer has decided to stop seeking a sales ban on Apple products in Europe.

On Tuesday, Samsung announced it would cease injunction attempts against Apple in the U.K., Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands.

"[We] strongly believe it is better when companies compete fairly in the marketplace, rather than in court," Samsung said in a statement released to The Verge, echoing a criticism it's brought up about Apple's litigation habits before.

"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."

Round and round

However, even though Samsung won't be trying to convince the European courts to ban sales of Apple's products, the company will still continue seeking damages for patent infringements.

The ongoing legal drama between Samsung and Apple seems destined to continue, as until this point, neither party has budged without some motivation from the court system.

Though Samsung is dropping its injunctions against Apple based on the standard essential patents, it's still under investigation by the European Commission for potentially breaking anti-trust laws related to those same patents.

Apple was awarded $1 billion in damages from the U.S. ITC, but is still seeking even more, with the hope to gain more than an additional $700 million from Samsung.

These proceedings continue to happen, despite Samsung and Apple actually being partners in manufacturing the iPhone.

Both parties claim that the working relationship shared by the companies won't be affected by the trial, but there are rumblings Apple is looking elsewhere for aid in future phone development.

More progress is expected to be made in both Apple's case against Samsung and Samsung's case against Apple in the new year, and, hopefully there will be an end to this endless courtroom drama.

Via The Verge