Ondrej Holzman Neither company has yet officially commented on the situation, but Korean media reports that a meeting between the heads of Apple and Samsung to discuss a possible out-of-court settlement of their long-running patent disputes has ended in failure. So everything leads to the next court battle in March...
At the beginning of January, Apple and Samsung agreed that - based on the court's recommendation - at the latest by February 19, their bosses will meet in person, to get together and try to find a way out of the endless disputes before the upcoming trial, which will probably have similar dimensions to the one that ended only a few months ago.
There have now been reports in Korean dailies that a meeting between Tim Cook and his counterpart Oh-Hyun Kwon has already taken place, however the result is no resolution. Similar to 2012, when the heads of both tech giants tried to come to an agreement, the current meeting also ended in failure. However, there is nothing to be surprised about.
Apple and Samsung are a very large set of issues, and with the companies accusing each other of something every month and trying to ban the sale of the other's products, a settlement without an independent arbitrator – in this case a court – was hardly expected.
The new trial will begin on March 31 and will deal with products several generations newer than those dealt with in the previous dispute, which resulted in almost billion fine for Samsung. Now you they will deal with, for example, iPhone 5 or Galaxy S III.
Among the witnesses who will appear before the court, one of Apple's top executives is marketing chief Phil Schiller again, and Scott Forstall, the head of the iOS division who was dismissed at the end of 2012, could also appear on the witness stand.
