Apple, Samsung 'trying to find common ground' in patent war - report
A resolution to the long-running intellectual property battle between Apple and Samsung could be drawing near, as a Wednesday report out of South Korea suggested that the tech titans are working toward an agreement that would allow their important supplier relationship to continue.
"We are trimming down the number of disputed issues," an unnamed "industry official" told the Korea Times. "We no longer want to spend time talking about secondary points. Both firms are trying to find common ground."
The talks are said to be at a "working level," and both companies are believed to have taken a more pragmatic approach to burying the hatchet following Apple's repeated legal victories over the South Korean giant. In addition to winning import bans on Samsung products in a number of jurisdictions around the world, Apple has been awarded nearly $1 billion in U.S.-based patent infringement lawsuits.
Also at stake is Samsung's place as one of Apple's favored component suppliers. Along with a number of other parts, Samsung currently fabricates Apple's A-series processors at a Texas facility and is though to be aiming to win a contract to supply OLED displays for Apple's so-called "iWatch."
Apple is also said to be eager to continue the relationship, which has enabled the iPhone maker to ship nearly 1 billion iOS devices over the last seven years.
"As technology shifts toward wearable devices, Apple still wants to keep Samsung as its top-tier parts sourcing channel," another source told the paper.
"We are trimming down the number of disputed issues," an unnamed "industry official" told the Korea Times. "We no longer want to spend time talking about secondary points. Both firms are trying to find common ground."
The talks are said to be at a "working level," and both companies are believed to have taken a more pragmatic approach to burying the hatchet following Apple's repeated legal victories over the South Korean giant. In addition to winning import bans on Samsung products in a number of jurisdictions around the world, Apple has been awarded nearly $1 billion in U.S.-based patent infringement lawsuits.
Also at stake is Samsung's place as one of Apple's favored component suppliers. Along with a number of other parts, Samsung currently fabricates Apple's A-series processors at a Texas facility and is though to be aiming to win a contract to supply OLED displays for Apple's so-called "iWatch."
Apple is also said to be eager to continue the relationship, which has enabled the iPhone maker to ship nearly 1 billion iOS devices over the last seven years.
"As technology shifts toward wearable devices, Apple still wants to keep Samsung as its top-tier parts sourcing channel," another source told the paper.
Comments
Samsung needs Apple for its r &d lol
Sooner or later a big wedge of cash will change hands and an agreement will be signed and the patent war will be over.
Samsung could offer Apple the opportunity to put iAds on their Tizen phones, that would probably be worth as much as the settlements.
Both companies need each other. Apple needs Samsung as they can supply to both the demand and the quality required. This is easily infered by the fact that Samsung is still supplying Apple and hasn't been cut out of that loop. Despite all the people demanding Apple drop Samsung as a supplier or saying in the very near future they will drop them.
Samsung needs Apple for its r &d lol
Sooner or later a big wedge of cash will change hands and an agreement will be signed and the patent war will be over.
You mean Samsung needs Apple's fashion design R&D? LOL
They have the foresight, the patience, the capability, the capital, and they hate relying on unreliable outside sources.
[I]"We make the whole widget."[/I] - Steve Jobs
Common ground: Apple has patents, Samsung stole them.
Boom. Found it. Case closed.
yeah the scale has now tipped in Apple favor and Samsung has to decide weather future opportunities are worth the ongoing fights. We all know Samsung tactics and they were only able to pull off what they did because of Android, if Google never put android on the market, do you think that Samsung would have sold as much as they did. It would have been Apple, BB, Nokia, and a bunch of other phone companies putting out some variant of mobile Java products. Google Enable Samsung, and with Apple undisclosed truce with Google Samsung may be realizing their cell phone future could be bleak.
The Samsung mother ship has to decide if being cut out of future apple products is worth what they are doing today. You know the saying keep your enemies very close to you.
Android has also been a crux of the legal problems. The last trial consisted solely of features built into Android. In hindsight it's been beneficial, but they had no way of knowing that in the beginning.
There was one guy who used to keep posting "frothing at the mouth" anti-Samsung rhetoric who used (obviously, to me at least) fake, bad English. Most regular forum citizens knew he was a false flag, but some people thought what he was posting was sincere.
No, but I bet they can still write three articles about it, complete with illustrations from Martin Hajeck and a reach around to Ming-chi Kuo.
I see no reason why Apple can't become their own component supplier in the future.
They have the foresight, the patience, the capability, the capital, and they hate relying on unreliable outside sources.
"We make the whole widget." - Steve Jobs
Because becoming a great component manufacturer from scratch - to build the facilities, hire the personnel and put in the processes - to become as good at making components as companies like Samsung, AMD, Intel, Qualcomm etc. that have been doing it for decades - is a lot harder and more expensive than people realize. It also is not necessarily Apple's wheel house. Apple's thing has been using the best parts - and using the design process to get the most out of those parts - to create the best products. Creating the best components, which means dealing with stuff like solid state physics, materials, manufacturing processes etc. is a completely different type of R&D, another field of engineering that requires a whole different mindset and culture.
Another thing: would be cost effective? Samsung sells components to everybody - in addition to using them for their own vast product lineup - which allows them to scale, innovate, compete with the other top component manufacturers while still keeping prices relatively low. If Apple is going to only build their own components for their own devices, they are going to cost 4-5 times as much. So they would have to sell components to everyone like the other component manufacturers do. Except not everyone will want Apple's components custom-designed for Apple's products. They are going to want their own components for their own products, and Apple would have to put in the effort to make everyone else's components the best just as they would for their own just to keep the cost of their own components down. When you consider the cost and effort that it would take to market and manage "Apple Semiconductor" to make it viable, pretty soon Apple would lose what makes it unique and become just another tech company that makes routine products on one hand and banal, clumsy iterative copies of truly innovative. Like Samsung.
They should both just follow Tesla's lead and drop the patents entirely. Apple is going to win either way, so why continue wasting so much energy?
I see no reason why Apple can't become their own component supplier in the future.
They have the foresight, the patience, the capability, the capital, and they hate relying on unreliable outside sources.
"We make the whole widget." - Steve Jobs
Because they don't have the patents Samsung has.
This is a ludicrous statement.
Apple, Samsung 'trying to find common ground' in patent war - report
"There is no common ground to be found while standing on my private property Samsung." -Apple
They both steal sh**!
Then they use their high paid lawyers to battle it out in the arena.
They both steal sh**!
Then they use their high paid lawyers to battle it out in the arena.
So true. Apple and Samsung both steal or copy. But Apple is the jerk here wasting everyone's money by initiating frivolous lawsuits using stolen/prior ideas like rectangular shape, slide-to-unlock which is copied from Neonode, universal search etc.
You should read into these patents before making statements like these. If you did, you would understand what exactly, these patens entail.
You should read into these patents before making statements like these. If you did, you would understand what exactly, these patens entail.
Are you saying Apple exploited the technicalities of the patent system to patent seemingly prior arts/ideas and used them to sue the competitors? Come on, nothing about the slide-to-unlock, rectangular shaped tablet or universal search patents are ever original ideas by Apple. I dont have to read about the legal mumble-jumble of the patent documents to know Apple exploited the patent and nationalistic sentiment of American people/court to its advantage.