Recently Apple and Samsung released a joint statement informing that they will be dropping all lawsuits against each other in various countries around the world, except the US. Their patent battles will continue Stateside and for the time being Samsung has scored a minor victory. The company has filed paperwork to inform Judge Lucy Koh that the US Patent and Trademark Office has declared a patent that Apple used against it in a recent trial invalid.
Due to USTPO's decision Apple no longer has a claim on the US Patent No. 8,074,172 which deals with predictive text input. Claim 18 of the patent was rejected to be precise due to prior art. In the recent trial Apple had claimed that Samsung had infringed on it and the jury sided with it, awarding the Cupertino company $119.6 million in damages.
Now though in light of this recent development it is possible that the damage award might be reduced at the very least but we'll only know for sure when this matter is taken up in Judge Koh's courtroom.
