According to the Wall Street Journal, Samsung and Apple have began talking again and are trying to reach an agreement that would put an end to the endless lawsuits we’ve seen these last few years. Most notably, the patent infringement case of 2011 which ended with a verdict in favor of Apple and made Samsung pay $1 billion.
Neither company wanted to settle outside the courts, but there have been numerous meetings between them, as noted by the International Trade Commission in June, where they released a document mentioning such talks but omitting how close they were to actually settling. Now, it seems both companies are trying again, having face to face meetings in Seoul, South Korea, Samsung’s home country.
What Samsung appears to be looking is for a broad cross-licensing deal, to settle once and for all every argument they may possibly have. What we don’t know if Apple is interested in a deal like this, and they might be trying to get Samsung to pay a fee for using its patents.
Apple tried to offer Samsung a settlement offer in September, after the verdict of the trial was made, but it seems after that, there were more meeting between the companies between December and March, including the face to face meetings we mentioned earlier. Samsung tried to continue these discussions after March, but Apple appears to refused them.
We know that battles and lawsuits will continue all over the world unless these talks result in something, we’ve seen both companies win some and lose some, and then appeal every decision made.
Last year, Samsung released its flagship the Galaxy S IV to battle Apple’s iPhone 5, after so many claims than previous Samsung phones copied the iPhone in so many respects, the design of the Galaxy S4 appeared to been made with this issues in mind and tried to avoid any comparison to Apple’s device. At a moment, the Galaxy S4 was joked to be “designed by lawyers”
Hopefully, they can make an agreement and put all of this behind, so they can focus on innovation and better products for us.