Apple, Samsung Withdraw Their Appeals of Last Year’s Final ITC Ruling

Apple and Samsung’s recent move on patent infringement lawsuits is getting a lot of attention. 

German patent blog FOSS Patents reported on June 14 that Samsung dropped its appeal of last year’s final ITC ruling on Apple’s complaint against the company on June 12 (local time), and Apple also did the same on the following day. 

The Korean tech giant revealed its position to the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit by saying, “We conferred with Appellee International Trade Commission and Intervenor Apple Inc., and neither party objected to the requested voluntary dismissal.”

Apple withdrew its appeal as well, pointing out, “The dismissal of Samsung’s appeal means the Commission’s exclusion order and cease-and-desist orders will remain in place.”

Florian Mueller, blogger of FOSS Patents, remarked, “That’s true in a formal sense,” adding, “In a commercial sense it means that Apple gets zero leverage out of its ITC case against Samsung.” This is due to the fact that only Samsung’s older models like the Galaxy S, Galaxy S2, Galaxy Nexus, and Galaxy Tab are banned from being imported to the US. Moreover, the largest Android phone maker has already been introducing new products that have nothing to do with Apple’s patent to the market. 

As a result, experts are saying that they might reach an agreement after almost three years. On May 16, Apple said, “Our company and Google agreed to withdraw all patent infringement lawsuits against each other.”

At that time, Apple stated that its agreement with Google would not affect the case against Samsung. However, industry analysts anticipated that Apple could reach an agreement with Samsung.