Patent rights & infringement: Apple & Samsung war coming to an end

The long-running and costly patent war between Samsung and Apple may soon be coming to an end after it was reported that the two companies have begun talks to settle disputes out of court.

Discussions on how all lawsuits between Apple and Samsung might be dismissed have resumed at a “working level”, according to a Korea Times report that cites an unnamed source directly involved with the matter.

“Samsung has recently resumed working-level discussions with Apple and the key issue is how to dismiss all lawsuits,” the source stated.\

“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.”

The news comes just days after Apple and Google agreed to settle all outstanding patent disputes revolving around Google’s Android operating system, which Apple founder Steve Jobs famously called a stolen product.

“I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this. They are scared to death because they know they are guilty.”

Some experts had suggested that such a move was a precursor to Apple concentrating all of its efforts on the ongoing patent battles with Samsung. A ruling in California earlier this month ordered Samsung to pay Apple $119.6m (£71m) in damages, while Apple was ordered to pay Samsung $158,000 for infringing its patents.

However, German-based intellectual property expert Florian Mueller told the Korea Times that he believed Apple’s patent portfolio was not strong enough to pursue further significant lawsuits.