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Samsung, the South Korean electronics giant, had been seeking injunctions in several countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, contending that Apple, Samsung’s biggest rival in the smartphone market, had infringed Samsung patents. The move came only a day after a ruling in a related case in San Francisco, where a Federal District Court judge rejected a request by Apple, which is based in California, for an injunction to block sales of certain Samsung devices. The decision followed a previous jury ruling that Samsung had violated Apple patents. After the latest twist in the European case, Samsung said it had acted “in the interest of protecting consumer choice.” Analysts said other factors might have been in play, including a possible nudge from the European Commission. In January, the commission opened a formal antitrust investigation into Samsung’s licensing terms for patents covering wireless technologies. Under a previous agreement, Samsung had pledged to make the patents available to competitors on “fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory” terms. “The scope of what was withdrawn precisely matches the area in which the European Commission has been investigating,” said Florian Müller, a patent consultant in Germering, Germany. “It’s not just that the plot is thickening; in my view, there can be no other plausible view than that there is pressure from Brussels.” The commission previously said that it was concerned about possible abuse of patents like the ones at issue in the Apple-Samsung injunction request, which cover technologies needed for a device to function. Without some of these “standard essential patents” from Samsung, for example, phones cannot connect to high-speed wireless networks. “Regulators have been saying, if the patent holders try to abuse these patents, then they are going to get in trouble,” Mr. Müller said. The commission declined to comment directly on whether there might be a link between Samsung’s announcement on Tuesday and the antitrust case in Brussels. “We take note of this development,” said Antoine Colombani, the spokesman for the European competition commissioner, Joaqu?n Almunia. “Our investigation is ongoing.” Samsung said that it could not comment on the proceedings but that it was “fully cooperating with the European Commission.” “Samsung remains committed to licensing our technologies on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms, and we strongly believe it is better when companies compete fairly in the marketplace, rather than in court,” it said in a statement. There has been speculation that Samsung and Apple have been in talks to reach a settlement, though the broad scale of the litigation between the two companies, with lawsuits seeking sales bans or damages continuing on several continents, could make that challenging. “We cannot comment on details of ongoing legal proceedings, but we believe a commercial resolution is achievable,” Samsung said in a statement. Alan Hely, a spokesman for Apple, declined to comment. The announcement by Samsung did not end litigation between the two companies in Europe. Samsung said it planned to pursue lawsuits seeking damages from Apple for what it contends is patent infringement. Apple and Samsung have also been battling over other patents, covering nonessential features of their devices, like design. Apple, too, has previously secured bans on the sale of certain Samsung products. Last year, for example, a court in Düsseldorf ruled that Samsung could not sell one of its Galaxy tablet devices in Germany because it bore too close a resemblance to the iPad 2 from Apple. While some analysts cited regulatory pressure as a possible reason for Samsung’s decision on Tuesday, others said the company might have decided that the lawsuits were simply a distraction. Samsung’s phones, especially its Galaxy S3, have been selling well. In the third quarter, the S3 surpassed the iPhone 4S to become the world’s best-selling smartphone, according to Strategy Analytics, a research firm. “Maybe the market was telling them that they were succeeding and their time was better spent promoting sales of their product,” said Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester Research.
James Kanter contributed reporting.
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, Jan Ulfbergb, Klaus Bergerc, Imad Ghorayebd, Jan Wesströme, Stephany Fuldaf, Richard P. Alleng, Thomas Pollmächerf, ha Sleep and Epilepsy Center, Neurocenter (EOC) of Southern Switzerland, Civic Hospital, Lugano, Via Tesserete 46, 6900 Lugano, Switzerlandb Department of Medicine, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Swedenc Institute of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, University of Münster, Münster, Germanyd Clinical Neurophysiology Department, Centre Hospitalier et Universitaire de Bordeaux, Bordeaux cedex, Francee Center for Clinical Research Dalarna, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Uppsala University, Swedenf Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry, Munich, Germanyg Center of Mental Health, Klinikum Ingolstadt, Ingolstadt, Germanyh Department of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University, Bayview Medical Center, Baltimore, MD, USAReceived 13 May 2011. Revised 30 August 2011. Accepted 30 August 2011. Available online 9 November 2011.View full text Sleep is an essential human behavior that shows prominent gender differences. Disturbed sleep, in particular, is much more prevalent in females than males. Restless legs syndrome (RLS) as one cause of disturbed sleep was observed to be somewhat more common among women than men in Ekbom's 1945 seminal series of clinical cases with the disease. He, however, reported this gender difference mainly for those with more severe symptoms. Since then numerous studies have reported that women are affected by RLS about twice as often as males for mild as well as moderate to severe RLS. The present review focuses on RLS in females from the perspectives of both epidemiology and pathophysiology. RLS will generally become worse or might appear for the first time during pregnancy. Parity increases the risk of RLS later in life suggesting that pregnancy is a specific behavioral risk factor for developing RLS. Some evidence suggests that dysfunction in iron metabolism and high estrogen levels might contribute to RLS during pregnancy. But, menopause does not lower the incidence of RLS nor does hormone replacement therapy lead to an increase, suggesting a quite complex uncertain role of hormones in the pathophysiology of RLS. Therefore, further, preferably longitudinal studies are needed to unravel the factors causing RLS in women. These studies should include genetic, clinical and polysomnographic variables, as well as hormonal measures and variables assessing iron metabolism.prs.rt("abs_end");Restless legs syndrome; Gender; Female; Sleep; Insomnia; Pregnancy; Estrogens; Menopause; Quality of life
View Within ArticleTable 2. Epidemiological studies published in literature on RLS prevalence that included an assessment on the quality of life.