Samsung Chief Rules out Patent Settlement with Apple

Apple and HTC had recently announced a patent settlement with a 10 year licensing deal. However Samsung officials have ruled out any possibility of having similar settlement with Apple. J.K. Shin, the head of Samsung Electronics' mobile unit, told reporters "We have no such intention”. A fierce legal battle is still on as there are patent infringement cases going on in at least 10 countries between Apple and Samsung.

Some rulings have gone in favour of Apple where as in some other countries Samsung was able to get the verdict in their favour. A US jury had ordered Samsung to pay Apple $1.05 billion as damages to violating the patent norms. Apple accused Samsung of having illegally copied the design elements of Apple’s iPhone and iPad models to their devices including Galaxy series. Now Samsung has appealed against this ruling and the case hearing is still on. However, in countries like Netherlands and Japan, Apple’s patent infringement claims were dismissed by the courts.  

Moreover Samsung is buoyed by their impressive performance in the last quarter especially in the high end smartphone segment. They have widened their lead over Apple selling around 55 million smartphones in Q3 2012. Their latest offering Galaxy S3 device is all set to become the world's top-selling smartphone.

All these factors seem to have given Samsung enough confidence in meeting the legal challenges they are facing with Apple. HTC on the other hand had a relatively weak position against Apple in terms of sales and market shares; hence settling the patent related cases with a licensing deal was always on cards for them.  HTC official had expressed relief while announcing this deal and stated that they can now focus finally on innovation than litigation.