Two technology titans who have
been grappling in courts around the world will be meeting face to face Monday
to see if they can settle their differences and concentrate on what they do
best: creating great consumer electronics products. Apple CEO Tim Cook and
Samsung Major Domo Gee-Sung Choi are scheduled to meet in San Francisco to
engage in two days of discussions about claims and counterclaims made in
lawsuits filed in the United States in which each company maintains its
intellectual property has been infringed by the other. The meeting between the
two CEOs isn't a voluntary one. It was ordered by the federal judge, Lucy Koh,
presiding over lawsuits filed by Apple against Samsung alleging infringement of
patents for both the iPad and iPhone. Although the negotiation sessions next week, which
will be refereed by Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero, involve U.S. cases, they
could have ramifications for the 47 lawsuits between
the two companies in nine other countries.
Similar negotiations were ordered
in another high profile, high tech trial -- Google vs. Oracle --but both sides failed to settle anything and the case had to
go to trial anyway. However, that may not be the case in the Apple-Samsung
negotiations. First of all, efforts have been made before by Apple to settle
its differences with the Korean company. Those efforts came to light in an
Australian court in 2011 when an Apple patent attorney testified that former
CEO Steve Jobs contacted Samsung in July 2010 in an attempt to settle
the company's intellectual property differences. What's more, the relationship
between Apple and Samsung is very different from the one between Google and
Oracle. "Samsung is one of Apple's biggest suppliers and it's almost
necessary for the delivery of iPhones," explains Adam L.K. Philipp, an
attorney with Aeon Law in Seattle. "So the companies are
highly motivated to come to a mutually bearable resolution to this."
In
addition, although the negotiation sessions next week are court ordered,
Philipp believes both sides wanted them. Having the court order the sit-down
between the CEOs was a "face saving measure," for the companies, he
contended. "They wanted to sit down and have negotiations and so they
agreed to have the judge order them to sit down and have negotiations, he
asserted. He predicted, "They're going to come up with some type of
settlement and some business understanding that's going to allow both of them
to go forward without appearing to have lost." "If I were to go out
on a limb," he continued, "I would predict that there's going to be
some burying of the hatchet and then an announcement of some great new
partnership initiatives." If that doesn't happen, though, the companies
will see each other in July in trial court.
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