Earlier this month, a single news story significantly changed the landscape of the ongoing legal battles between tech companies. HTC and Apple reached a settlement, and that means things are changing, possibly becoming less combative.
Samsung, however, vowed to keep fighting, and has now requested information about the HTC/Apple settlement, citing it as “highly relevant” to the legal battle between Samsung and Apple. Apparently some of the patents that HTC and Apple settled over will also cover some of the patents that are in dispute with Samsung. As reported by Bloomberg:
The agreement may undermine Apple’s claim that Samsung’s patent infringement can’t be resolved with license payments, according to the filing.
“Apple’s apparent willingness to license these patents supports Samsung’s argument that Apple cannot show irreparable harm because monetary damages are adequate,” Samsung said in the filing.
While Samsung remains ready for a fight, things may be improving in another major legal battle. Another report from Bloomberg indicates that Apple and Google’s Motorola Mobile might be entering arbitration over standard patents, rather than just eternal legal battles.
Apparently, they’re trying to reach use binding arbitration for patents that are more or less on par with industry standards about how phones should operate.
All told, it looks like there might be something of a sea change away from the eternal legal wrangling that has been plaguing these fights up until now. We can only hope for some sort of holiday accord.
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