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Apple and Samsung Negotiating Agreement to Settle Patent Disputes Out of Court

Monday May 19, 2014 5:51 am PDT by Kelly Hodgkins
Apple and Samsung may be close to reaching an agreement that would settle all patent infringement lawsuits out of court, claims Kim Yoo-chul of The Korea Times (Via Fortune). This account follows a previous report from late last week that Apple and Google/Motorola have reached an agreement to drop all ongoing litigation between the two companies.

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Samsung and Apple are reportedly in the early stages of negotiation with some key details on royalty payments still under negotiation.
"Samsung has recently resumed working-level discussions with Apple and the key issue is how to dismiss all lawsuits," one source said, declining to be named.

[...]

"Some more time will be needed to fix terms of details such as royalty payments in return for using patents owned by each before reaching a full agreement."
Apple and Samsung recently faced off in a California court as part of the second US patent infringement lawsuit between the two companies. In the case that concluded earlier this month, the jury found that Samsung willfully infringed on three of the five Apple patents involved in the lawsuit and ordered the Korean company to pay Apple a sum of $119.6 million. Apple also was found guilty of infringing on one of Samsung's patents with damages totaling $158,400.

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VulchR
63 months ago
A sad day for lawyers everywhere.... :)
Rating: 25 Votes
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maflynn
63 months ago
Hopefully this will happen, both companies probably spent more money in lawyer fees/court costs then what either ever gained.
Rating: 7 Votes
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longofest
63 months ago
It is past time that this happened. Get er' done!
Rating: 7 Votes
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kdarling
63 months ago

For someone that is always talking about experience about the matter and knowledge, surely you are completely clueless about this particular matter, am I right?


I get my facts from the sources (actual court documents, evidence, etc), not from fansite articles.

Abusing SEPs that belong to the 80s is a bad business model.


That does not change the fact that Apple has stalled paying royalties for years, and that judges have negatively commented that Apple has been using the court system to try to lower the rates they'll have to pay.

Patent abuse is patent abuse, whether it's essential or not.

It's just as bad when a SEP holder tries for a intra-negotiation injunction, as when a non-SEP holder runs around suing everyone with similar solutions.

As Judge Posner put it, "You can't just assume that just because someone has a patent, he has deep moral right to exclude everyone else from using it."

I would add that I think this goes double for software patents.

Yes. Motorola was abusing SEPs (check), so they got nothing (check), as they should (check).


Not being able to get an injunction against Apple, does not mean Motorola won't get paid by Apple. Apple still owes royalties no matter what, and they've been piling up every day for years. Only now, Apple owes those back royalties to Google, since they own the patents.

That has been covered many times before. Apple knows it has to pay royalties on FRAND patents. But because competitors know its Apple, and they have lots of money, expect them to pay more for their licenses then anyone else. Thats not what FRAND is based upon.


This has indeed been covered many times before:

Apple refused to cross license. That's their decision, but Apple wanted to be treated special and pay the same lower rates that others got by cross-licensing.

That's hardly fair to the other companies.
Rating: 7 Votes
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John.B
63 months ago
Samsung is going to do what they want anyway, regardless of any agreements that may or may not be in place. It's just how they do business.
Rating: 7 Votes
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Jynto
63 months ago
This is almost TOO good to be true.
Rating: 6 Votes
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duffman9000
63 months ago

Though its been said for a while...

But..

Steve jobs wouldn't have allowed this.....


And Steve Jobs didn't want an iPad mini. SJ wasn't always right.
Rating: 5 Votes
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Gasu E.
63 months ago

It would be great to see this resolved so that Apple can focus on developing new products.


Apple needs to get all those lawyers back to work writing code. ;)
Rating: 5 Votes
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kdarling
63 months ago

Refusing to cross-license does not give the essential patent holder the right to deny a license


Interestingly, the ETSI FRAND rules appear to allow requiring a cross license.

Rating: 5 Votes
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kdarling
63 months ago

Wait, isn't this all part of Samsung's infringe now > stall > pay later strategy?


Everyone stalls, including Apple.

Apple has used the courts to avoid paying royalties for seven years to companies which had spent decades and billions inventing and building the worldwide cellular system and market... a setup that Apple then came in and made billions from without making a similar contribution.

Let's hope the agreement is the foundation for UPFRONT, proper licensing agreements in the future.


I'm wondering how much they were influenced by the DOJ's stance last year on FRAND patent negotiations. Remember? They set limits on how long a licensee like Apple can use the courts to avoid paying royalties.

If a deal isn't made soon, Apple will have to submit to arbitrated rates, and I think they want to avoid that.

Plus, of course, there's the ridiculous amounts they've spent on litigation without affecting Samsung sales one tiny bit. If anything, all the press helped Samsung.
Rating: 5 Votes

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