Ondrej Holzman They have been fighting in courtrooms around the world for years, but now Apple and Google, which owns the Motorola Mobility division, have agreed to leave those wars behind. The two companies have announced that they will drop all lawsuits they filed against each other…
Although the end of the patent disputes is a sign of reconciliation, the agreement did not go so far as to have the two sides hand over their patents to each other, only to not continue the legal battles over smartphone patents that erupted in 2010 and eventually developed into one of the biggest disputes in the technological world.
According to The Verge there were around 20 legal disputes between Apple and Motorola Mobility around the world, with the most taking place in the United States and Germany.
The most watched case began in 2010, when both sides accused each other of infringing several patents, and Motorola claimed that Apple was infringing its patent on how mobile phones work on a 3G network. But the case was thrown out of the table by Judge Richard Posner shortly before the trial in 2012, according to him, neither side presented sufficient evidence.
"Apple and Google have agreed to drop all lawsuits that currently directly involve the two companies," the two companies said in a joint statement. “Apple and Google have also agreed to work together on some areas of patent reform. The agreement does not include cross-licensing.”
