Apple Inc agreed to drop Samsung Electronics Co’s Galaxy S III Mini from a patent-infringement lawsuit against the South Korea-based company, according to court records.
Apple said it agreed to withdraw the smartphone from its case because Samsung assured the court the phone will not be sold in the US, according to a filing on Friday in federal court in San Jose, California.
The filing, which follows an August verdict in the same court in Apple’s favor on other infringement claims, comes in a second patent case between the two companies, scheduled for trial in 2014.
Apple will withdraw the Galaxy S III Mini “given Samsung’s representation that it is not making, using, selling, offering to sell or importing that product into the US,” the filing said.
Apple claims that the smartphone is available for sale through Amazon.com, and said it will agree to drop its claims against the Galaxy S III Mini only if Samsung’s assurances remain true.
At a Dec. 6 hearing, Apple asked Koh to increase the damages awarded by the jury by US$536 million, while Samsung said the verdict should be reduced by more than US$600 million. Koh has not ruled on the matter.
Samsung and Apple, the world’s two biggest smartphone makers, have each scored victories in their patent disputes fought over four continents since Cupertino, California-based Apple accused Asia’s biggest electronics maker of “slavishly copying” its devices.
The companies are competing for dominance of a global mobile-device market estimated by Yankee Group at US$346 billion this year.
Samsung, facing an antitrust probe by European regulators, has said it will halt efforts to block sales of Apple products in Europe.
Newer smartphones made by both companies, including Samsung’s Galaxy S III and Apple’s iPhone 5, have been added to the case set for trial in 2014.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained