Apple: Samsung should drop U.S. complaints as it did in Europe

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Back in December, Samsung withdrew all of its SEP (or Standard-Essential Patent) —related injunction requests in Europe “in the interest of protecting consumer choice.” Well if that was truly the case, then why is it still pursuing identical claims here in the US?

In a response filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission yesterday, Apple accused Samsung of filing a motion to strike to avoid “inconvenient facts” regarding its reasons for withdrawing claims in Europe. In short, Apple just called Samsung out…

Now, regardless of what Samsung says, withdrawing its EU claims against Apple likely had more to do with the European Commission’s impending anti-trust suit against it than anything else. But the fact that it tied the move to “protecting consumer choice” was damning.

Here was Samsung’s full statement regarding its withdrawal:

“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.”

So now Apple’s wondering, if that was the case over in Europe, then why is Samsung still pursuing injunction requests against it here in the States, based on those same standard-essential patents? FOSSPatents (via AppleInsider) has the money excerpt from Apple’s brief:

“Moreover, Samsung ignores Samsung’s own public statementadmitting that its injunction withdrawals in Europe served the interests of consumers. This admission creates a clear and irreconcilable conflict between Samsung’s statements in Europe and its statements to the ITC, as discussed in Apple’s Notice. Simply put, Samsung’s pursuit of exclusionary relief on declared-essential patents in this investigation is equally as harmful to American consumers as Samsung’s pursuit of injunctions on declared-essential patents in Europe was harmful to European consumers. Having withdrawn its injunction requests in Europe, Samsung should now withdraw its exclusion-order request here.”

Boom.

Apple makes a great point here, and it could be seriously damaging to Samsung’s litigation efforts. The Korean handset maker has long been accused of abusing its standard-essential patents, which, outside of the recent Notification Center-related suit, are all it’s really used in its fight with Apple.