Apple and Samsung Looking to Settle Patent Disputes

Earlier this month, tech giants Apple and Samsung were handed a mixed verdict by an eight-person jury in a high-profile patent infringement case. In the verdict, the jury found that both companies were guilty of violating each other’s patents.

Apple had been suing Samsung for infringement on five patents. The jury found Samsung guilty in three of the five cases, and ordered the company to pay restitution of approximately $120 million. Apple had been seeking $2.2 billion in damages.

In turn, the jury also found that Apple was guilty of violating a Samsung patent. Samsung had requested $6.2 million in damages, but the jury only ordered Apple to pay a relatively paltry sum of $158,400.

It’s been a busy year for Apple on the patent infringement front, with the Silicon Valley-based company having recently reached an agreement with Google-owned Motorola for intellectual property violations. The contentious mixed decision in the Apple-Samsung case left many onlookers wondering what comes next, a question which was partially answered by news that the two giants were embarking on out-of-court negotiations.

However, optimism among industry insiders is guarded at best. In January of 2014, Apple and Samsung made their first attempt to settle their differences outside of court, only to have the mediated discussions fail spectacularly.

As a mobile app development company, we’ll continue to watch this case carefully as it unfolds during the upcoming weeks and months. Its resolution — whatever it may be — could have a profound effect on the immediate future of the U.S. tech industry.

For an Atlanta iPad app developer looking to the future, consider that most onlookers believe that Samsung will eventually make a one-time lump-sum payment to Apple in order to resolve outstanding U.S. patent infringements. Yet when that will happen — if it happens at all — is anybody’s guess.