“Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. blamed each another for blocking progress toward a settlement of their patent disputes in a report to the judge who has presided over their two U.S. trial,” Peter Blumberg reports for Bloomberg. “While lawyers for both companies vowed to continue to pursue an accord to end their three-year legal fight over smartphone technology, they each said their adversary has taken positions that make out-of-court resolution more difficult, according to a filing yesterday in federal court in San Jose, California.”
“Jurors in the second trial on May 2 awarded $120 million in damages to Apple over infringement of its patents, while also concluding that Apple infringed one of Samsung’s patents [a standard-essential patent (SEP) which awards Samsung a whopping US$158,400 – MDN Ed. finishing the job of accuracy and contextualization for Bloomberg]. The verdict sets the stage for each company to seek a court order banning U.S. sales of some older devices found to infringe its patents,” Blumberg reports. “Reaching a settlement is ‘impossible’ as long as Samsung refuses to agree that Apple’s participation in talks can’t be used in any proceedings over royalties or possible sales bans, Apple lawyer Mark Selwyn said in yesterday’s filing with U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, who has repeatedly urged the companies to make peace.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple and Samsung again fail to reach settlement. Shocking.
Related articles:
Samsung reportedly resumes settlement talks with Apple – May 19, 2014
Apple, Samsung fail to settle US patent infringement case; New case starts in March – February 22, 2014
Apple, Samsung agree to mediator in effort to settle patent infringement lawsuit – January 9, 2014
Judge Lucy Koh again asks Apple and convicted patent infringer Samsung to hold settlement talks – November 12, 2013
Judge urges Apple and Samsung to settle ahead of verdict – August 15, 2012
Negotiating with people who willfully and blatantly steal IP is harder than it looks.
Hard to make peace with one who has been robbing you for years
Who is mediating this settlement? Anyone? If not, maybe the court should appoint a mediator to help keep things reasonable.
Then again, reasonable probably means Samsung paying way more than Apple (considering that Samsung has next to nothing except SEPs on Apple, and Apple has a ton of stuff on Samsung), to which Samsung will likely never agree.
That’s what happens when you try to negotiate with thieves.
It’s kind of like trying to negotiate nuclear disarmament with a terrorist regime that wants to blow people up with nukes.
I think Samsung has no desire or intention to ever settle their disputes with Apple.
Yes. True for sure. They know that the courts in the US are a joke when it comes to IP cases. They’ll just drag it out until the products are so old that injunctions won’t do anything, and jury sentiment for Apple has faded. They’ll continue to copy-sell-litigate because it’s cheaper to pay the lawyers than it would be to pay a team of engineers to develop something on their own.
Very true! As a result of all of this crap, I refuse to buy another Samsung product. The secondary monitor that I use with my Mac mini is the last Samsung product that I will ever buy.
In this case prolonging the litigation is a good thing for the lawyers. They get paid more.
Samsung will also use every device to delay and frustrate before agreeing to settle. It is the MOA and has been very successful in the past.
It will be interesting when Samsung actually have to pay the $900M from the first trial. I assume there are still appeals pending. Once those are exhausted I bet Samsung will be a lot more open to settlement terms.
I see it as a one sided problem. Samsung.
Judge Koh needs to get Samsung’s attention. Perhaps a heavy fine per hour that passes by that Samsung refuses to negotiate might speed things up. Apple can wait for there tantrum to be over with.
If Judge Lucy Koh had simply allowed an injunction against the sale of infringing Samsung products, all these cases would have been settled years ago. Apple would have stopped Samsung from using its IP. And Samsung would show the world just how “trivial” all these Apple patents were …by working around them. Right, Samsung?
Judge Lucy Koh: xenophobia in American courts? Fuggedaboutit. Have you ever heard of Game Theory? Use it!
There is nothing here that a well aimed cruise missile couldn’t fix.
Aimed only at the CEO of Samdung!