The legal volleys still fly hot and heavy between Apple and Samsung, but the two tech giants have made moves to play nice, with each company dropping claims they had previously filed against each other.
From FOSS Patents:
Late on Monday by local time, Apple made a filing in its first California litigation with Samsung that offers a truly impressive narrowing of its infringement claims in that action, roughly cutting them in half, and five hours later, Samsung offered to drop five of its 12 asserted patents but argued that Apple’s case is still far too big to go to trial this summer. Apple’s filing accused Samsung of being uncooperative in the build-up to these filings, but Samsung puts all the blame on Apple and says the case still isn’t ready for a summer trial.
While both companies are starting to show a little class, the disputes are far from over. Apple still claims Samsung ripped them off, and Samsung claiming that “Apple is ‘[unable] to compete in the marketplace’ and ‘instead seeking to compete through litigation,’ ” Which may be the most absurd claim ever entered into court records.
“Apple’s filing accused Samsung of being uncooperative in the build-up to these filings, but Samsung puts all the blame on Apple and says the case still isn’t ready for a summer trial,” FOSS Patents reports. “There’s also the usual bickering over whether Samsung makes ‘copycat products’ infringing Apple’s rights or, as the Korean company argues, ‘innovative, independently developed technologies.’”
While Samsung has innovated in some areas, the fact remains they adopted Google’s Android as their smartphone OS, an OS which has been found by judges on three different continents to be infringing third-party intellectual property rights.
While some claims have been dropped on both sides, it’s clear this will continue to drag on through the summer, and probably into fall as well. One true fact of life: There is never a shortage of lawyers willing to file a lawsuit.
