We heard at the start of last month that Apple and Samsung had agreed to take part in a mediation session in an effort to reach an agreement on patent infringement issues regarding the companies’ latest mobile products.
Settling the issue would have meant the scrapping of a court case set for March in which Apple is accusing Samsung of infringing a number of its patents.
Well, the meeting has taken place, and you won’t be surprised to learn that the two sides failed to find common ground, meaning yet another trial will begin in California next month.
News of the impasse came via a joint filing with the US district court in San Jose on Friday, which stated that executives from the two tech titans – including Apple boss Tim Cook and Samsung co-CEO JK Shin – had faced each other in a full-day session, together with a mediator, earlier this month. Phone calls followed the meeting as the two sides sought to find a way through their long-running patent-related palaver, but the process ended in failure.
A joint statement by the two companies presented to US district judge Lucy Koh said, “Notwithstanding these efforts, the mediator’s settlement proposal to the parties was unsuccessful. Parties remain willing to work through the mediator jointly selected by the parties.”
Without any last-minute agreement, the pair will meet in court yet again in a matter of weeks, continuing a run of litigation that’s been taking place in courtrooms around the world for the last three years.
Whereas many of the continuing infringement disputes focus on old hardware made by the two tech companies, next month’s battle centers on more recent, bigger selling, devices – including Samsung’s popular Galaxy S3 smartphone – a factor which some observers believe could lead to an even larger damages payout than the near-$1 billion award handed to Apple in 2012 if Samsung is found to have infringed the Cupertino company’s patents.
[via WSJ]
