The patent war between Apple Inc. and Samsung continues as they failed to settle their disagreement before the next trial begins.
Early this month, executives of both companies, including Apple's chief executive Tim Cook and Samsung mobile communications president Shin Jong-Kyun, attended a full-day conference with a mediator to try to settle issues between their companies. After that, they had several follow-up calls with the mediator. However, a joint status report filed on Friday to Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose stated that they failed to work out on the settlement, Bloomberg reported.
"Notwithstanding these efforts, the mediator's settlement proposal to the parties was unsuccessful," wrote Apple and Samsung in their report to Koh, who had recommended them to try to settle things before the trial. However, both "parties remain willing to work through the mediator jointly selected by the parties."
Their next court hearing in federal court in California is scheduled to commence on March 31.
Apple is expecting at least $380 million as payment for the patent damages caused by Samsung. However, the latter believes that they owe $52 million only.
In August 2012, Samsung was found at fault of infringing six Apple patents and was forced to compensate the American company $1 billion. However, in March 2013, the amount was revisited by Judge Lucy Koh and implied the previous jury inaccurately computed the compensation for damages and it would need to be reassessed at a new hearing scheduled.
In an interview of Bloomberg before the report was submitted, Stanford Law School Professor Mark A. Lemley said, "Even though Apple seems to be winning across the board, they're not winning in the marketplace."
Court rulings in favor of Apple and court orders that blocked sales of Samsung merchandises seemed not a hindrance for Samsung's sales growth, Lemley added.
In a report by the market research firm International Data Corp. (IDC), Samsung accounted for more than a fourth (28.8 percent) of global smartphone shipments in the quarter that ended in Dec. 31. Apple's sales, on the other hand, fell by three percent, from 20.9 percent to 17.9 percent.
