Ondrej Holzman The top executives of Apple and Samsung have heeded the court's recommendation and are set to meet in person by February 19 at the latest to discuss their long-running patent disputes. So everything will be done before the next scheduled trial in March.
The legal teams of the two companies already met on January 6, when they discussed the possibilities of how the two sides could come to an agreement, and now it is the turn of the top executives - Apple CEO Tim Cook and his counterpart Oh-Hyun Kwon. They should meet only in the presence of their own lawyers.
Neither company has yet commented on the proposed meeting, which was confirmed in court documents, but it appears that after years of wrangling around the world, they may be keen to reach a resolution in both Cupertino and Seoul.
In the last two years, there have been two large court proceedings on American soil, and the verdict was clear - Samsung violated Apple's patents and was fined for it over 900 million dollars, which he must pay to his competitor as compensation for damages.
If there were to be a trial in March, where Apple again accuses Samsung of violating its patents, the amount that the South Korean giant has to pay could increase even more. Therefore, Samsung would like to make a deal to have access to Apple's patent portfolio in some way. But the Californian company would apparently like Samsung to pay for every device that infringes its patents.
