We just heard over the weekend that Apple and Google have settled their outstanding legal battles that began way back in 2010. Now comes word from The Korea Times that Apple and Samsung are inching closer to settling their patent litigation that spans courtrooms in numerous countries around the world.
“Samsung has recently resumed working-level discussions with Apple and the key issue is how to dismiss all lawsuits,” said unnamed sources familiar with the bilateral talks.
“Today I settled all family business.”
The sources add that royalty payments for the patents in question would be the likely remedy for both companies “before reaching a full agreement.”
The most recent court ruling in United States handed Apple a minor victory, with Samsung being ordered to pay $119.6M in damages for infringing on two patents (U.S. Patent Nos. 8,074,172 and 5,946,647). However, the jury also found Apple guilty of infringing on one Samsung patent (U.S. Patent No. 5,579,239) and awarded damages of $158,400.
The truce between Apple and Google give us some hope that this all out patent war in the smartphone realm could soon be over. However, all previous settlement negotiations between Apple and Samsung have failed in the past, so we’re not holding our breath on this report either.