In unsurprising news of this week, a lot of Korean websites and news papers are reporting that top level executives from Samsung and Apple have failed to reach an agreement in their mediation talks. Apple and Samsung have been battling it out in the courts for a long while now, and that’s not a secret. Apple had accused Samsung of various IP infringements including the hotly debated “Trade Dress”, but the Judge had decided to give both the companies the option to resolve their tussle through mediation talks. If the reports are true, those talks just failed and both the companies with be back to the courts, with Samsung defending Apple’s claims again.
The companies have been engaged in legal battles since 2012 and the verdict is set to be decided after the 19th of this month. According to ZDNet Korea, Samsung’s JK Shin and Apple’s Tim Cook were involved in the mitigation talks overseeing the lawsuit, and were supposed to reach an agreement by 19th, which now seems impossible for both the parties.
If the verdict goes through, Samsung might have to pay a hefty 930 millon USD to Apple for all the supposed losses that the company caused. The devices in contention for the lawsuit were the original Samsung Galaxy S and the first three generations of the iPhones, in which Apple claims that Samsung had copied not only its user interface but the general hardware design too, and over all, the trade dress infringement deals with how Samsung had sold its product. The verdict, especially after the failure of reaching an agreement, will be interesting, to say the least.
Source ZDNet Korea via TheVerge