Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Choi Gee-Sung will take part in court-appointed mediation between the two companies that will take place today and tomorrow. The purpose for their out-of-court discussion is to iron out disputes about legal battles related to several patents that have been going on for awhile now before a trial later on which might end up differently. Apple claims that Samsung copied the iPhone and the iPad when creating its Android Galaxy line of devices. In reply to that, Samsung has made the claim that the former also infringed some of its patents with its recent iPhone and iPad devices.
Both CEOs along with their respective lawyers and the mediating judge will begin the discussion this morning and the judge hopes that by having both parties discuss the issue at hand personally, the companies will be more likely to reach some sort of settlement deal and subsequently avoid a costly and probably lengthy legal debate in July. An executive from Samsung JK Shin said, “There is still a big gap in the patent war with Apple but we still have several negotiation options including cross-licensing.”
In addition to that, analysts are not optimistic about this discussion based on the fact that Google’s Larry Page and Oracle’s Larry Ellison also had a discussion with regards to a patent infringement but that didn’t go so well and now both companies are locked in a legal battle that is currently going into its sixth week of deliberations. The talks will start today and end tomorrow and if both companies cannot reach a deal that will settle the issue; the subsequent trial will take place in San Jose at the end of July.