“Today the United States District for the District of Delaware ordered the lawyers as well unspecified decision makers of Apple and HTC to meet in Delaware on August 28, 2012, to discuss a possible settlement,” Florian Mueller reports for FOSS Patents. “The talks will be moderated by Magistrate Judge Sherry R. Fallon.”
“I doubt that this effort is going to yield a result, and a decision made by this particular court has made a successful settlement effort even less likely than otherwise,” Mueller writes. “Less than five months ago, the very same district court stayed almost all of the Apple-HTC lawsuits pending in that district. Such a sweeping order to stay maybe within the court’s discretion, and Apple should have chosen a different venue from the outset, but it was highly unusual. It’s a simple truth that fast-approaching trial dates are the best lubricant for settlement talks, while Delaware-style postponements of the resolution of pending cases have the opposite effect”
Mueller writes, “If the Delaware court really wanted to make a contribution to a near-term settlement, it should un-stay all those lawsuits except for those claims that are still pending at the ITC. Even if the court did that, the matter wouldn’t be ripe for settlement by the summer, but then a mediation effort might succeed in early 2013.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The tremendous amount of time wasted is the travesty. The legal system operates at a glacial pace, especially compared to the speed of technology markets. By the time any meaningful judgements are settled, The Singularity will have arrived with a Samsung logo on it. (Designed by Apple in California. Knocked off in Korea.)
According to Gartner, in the first calendar quarter of 2012, Android accounted for 81.067 million smartphone units sold worldwide to end users (56.1% share) vs. 33.121 million units (22.9% share) for Apple’s iPhone.
Crime sure does pay.