Tim Cook Will Meet Samsung CEO In San Francisco Courthouse On May 21-22

A couple of weeks back, we reported that the CEOs of Apple and Samsung were planning to meet in San Francisco for a court-moderated discussion, in order to settle the long-standing patent dispute between the two companies. Today, Foss Patents has reported that the meeting has now been finalized between Tim Cook (Apple) and Gee-Sung Choi (Samsung) which is scheduled to take place in a San Francisco courthouse on May 21-22, 2012 starting on each day at 9:30 AM. This settlement effort will be overseen by Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero.

According to the source:

It makes sense to have parties discuss settlement in front of a judge who is not personally involved with the lawsuit. For example, one of the things Magistrate Judge Spero wants the parties to do is to provide a settlement statement until May 9 including, among other things, “a candid evaluation of the parties’ likelihood of prevailing on the claims and defenses”. I think this is wishful thinking because the parties won’t really say that any of their claims are legally weak, no matter in front of whom these talks take place, but there’s no way they would ever express even the slightest skepticism over any of their claims in front of a judge involved with the actual litigation.

Currently, Apple and Samsung have disputes pending in 10 countries. Let’s hope something positive comes out of this meeting that ends this “patents war”, once and for all.

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