From
Send to

Samsung-Apple settlement talks set for May 21-22

April 29, 2012 - 18:58 By Korea Herald
Samsung Electronics confirmed Sunday that the planned CEO-level meeting between the company and Apple will take place in a San Francisco court house on May 21-22.

A Samsung spokesperson contacted by The Korea Herald refused to elaborate further on the issue, though.

The Suwon, Gyeonggi Province-based company said earlier on April 18 that its vice chairman Choi Gee-sung will meet Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook following a court order for a settlement conference.

On April 17, U.S. Judge Lucy Koh, a federal judge presiding over two Samsung vs. Apple lawsuits in the Northern District of California, ordered the two companies to meet for the talks and gave them a 90-day deadline.

After agreeing to follow the order on the next day, the two electronics giants told the court that they were both willing to take part in a magistrate judge settlement with Judge Joseph Spero as mediator.

The two-day conference is scheduled to start each day at 9:30 a.m. local time, according to news reports.

It will be the first time for the heads of the global firms to sit down together in a bid to find a solution to their widening patent disputes in 10 countries.

Samsung and Apple are currently engaged in about 30 patent battles involving telecommunications technology, designs and user interfaces for their mobile devices at courts in Germany, Australia, the U.K., the U.S., Japan, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Korea.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)