Samsung CEO says 'patent disputes with Apple will continue'
While Apple was able to settle its past patent disputes with both Nokia and HTC, its ongoing legal battles against Samsung show no signs of slowing down.
According to the Korea Times, Samsung CEO Shin Jong-kyun recently spoke to reporters and indicated that an all-encompassing settlement agreement with Apple isn't on the horizon.
The CEO confirmed Samsung has no intention of ending the patent disputes with Apple.
"Patent disputes against Apple will continue," Shin said.
The paper notes that Jong-kyun's remarks are the first he's made about Apple since the ITC in early June ordered an import ban against older-generation iPhones and iPads for infringing upon standard essential patents owned by Samsung.
With a multitude of legal cases in jurisdictions across the globe, it would appear, at this point, that both Apple and Samsung will continue to fight this out until the bitter end. After all, Apple and Samsung together account for nearly 100 percent of the profits in the smartphone market and it stands to reason that neither side is sufficiently motivated to back down in any way.
That's all well and good, but the problem with these patent disputes is that by the time they ultimately go to trial, the products and designs in question may very well be irrelevant.
Tim Cook himself said as much while testifying in front of Congress this past May. Though he was in D.C. to discuss Apple's tax practices, Cook at one point was asked about the state of IP in the tech industry.
Cook replied,
I think the US Court system is currently structured in such a way that tech companies aren't getting the intellectual property protection they need. Our cycles are fast, the court system is very long and the foreign competitors in the US can quickly take IP and use it and ship products with it and they're to the next product as well. I would love to see conversations between countries and see protections between IP globally. For us, our intellectual property is so important, I would love the system to be strengthened in order to protect it.
