Apple and Samsung Rumoured to Resume Settlement Talks Out of Court

The recent ruling in a California court that found both Apple and Samsung guilty of infringing each other’s patents has benefitted settlement talks, according to the Korea Times (via Fortune). The two companies have resumed talks to settle patent disputes out of court, people familiar with the matter say.

“Samsung has recently resumed working-level discussions with Apple and the key issue is how to dismiss all lawsuits,” they said, declining to be named.

“Some more time will be needed to fix terms of details such as royalty payments in return for using patents owned by each before reaching a full agreement.”

Maybe 2014 will be the year of giant settlements. Just a couple days ago, Apple and Google announced they would terminate all patent litigations inherited when it acquired Motorola two years ago.

In the first round of the Apple vs. Samsung patent fight, the iPhone market was awarded $1 billion in damages, which was later adjusted to $930 million. In the second round, which ended recently, Apple was awarded $120 million of the requested $2 billion, and it was also ordered to pay Samsung $158,000 for infringing the latter’s patents.