After an increasingly long battle between Apple and Samsung over patent disputes, Samsung has withdrawn one of its lawsuits against Apple. Samsung have previously made claims that the Cupertino based company was copying many of Samsung"s innovations and using them on products such as the iPhone and iPad.
Samsung quietly withdrew its lawsuit on Thursday which it originally filed at a United States federal court in April, which was in response to Apple"s allegations that Samsung"s products were copies of the iPhone and iPad. According to a report from Bloomberg, Samsung dropped the lawsuit to "streamline legal proceedings" so that it may now concentrate on defending its patent rights through a counter-claim in an earlier suit.
This is only one of several litigations that Apple and Samsung are currently involved in and so disputes will continue between the two competing companies for quite some time. Nam Ki Yung, a spokesman for Samsung said that "[we] will continue to actively defend and protect our intellectual property". Samsung is currently the world"s second largest producer of mobile phones.
The design of the consumer tablet has been under the spotlight for quite some time and given that Apple have now entered the market with its iPad brand, it is no surprise that there may be similarities between different devices. With so many other manufacturers now trying to take their share, it"s likely we"ll be seeing more patent infringement lawsuits in the future.