CEOs of Apple and Samsung will meet to discuss settling patent war

Like warring Mafia families who are having a meeting attended by the head of each side, the CEOs of Apple and Samsung will meet on or before February 19th to try to work out a settlement relating to their patent issues. Apple CEO Tim Cook and his counterpoint at Korean based Samsung, Oh-Hyun Kwon, will meet accompanied only by each firm's in-house legal teams. The information was disclosed in a court filing on Wednesday. On January 6th, both Apple and Samsung attorneys met to discuss a possible deal.

In 2012, Apple won a S1.05 billion jury verdict against Samsung which was reduced when Judge Lucy Koh vacated $450 million of the verdict after finding inconsistencies with how the jury awarded damages on some devices. In the retrial, Apple was awarded $290 million. A new trial is scheduled for March, featuring more recent devices offered by Samsung including the flagship Samsung Galaxy S4.

While Apple has paid its legal team $60 million just to handle its litigation against Samsung, thus far juries have awarded the Cupertino based firm $930 million dollars. Samsung has not yet paid one cent as various appeals are in motion.

Back in 2012, Cook met with then Samsung CEO Choi Gee-Sung to try to hammer out an agreement before that year's epic patent trial. But Samsung did not want to pay Apple's licensing fees. Hopefully, for the sake of the industry, both sides can hammer out an agreement this time.

source: Reuters