Apple, Samsung CEOs fail to reach agreement

PanARMENIAN.Net - The attempt to goad Apple and Samsung into settling at least some of their ongoing patent dispute has apparently been fruitless, according to CNET.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung Chief Executive Officer Kwon Oh Hyun were asked by U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh to discuss possible resolutions of their patent litigation, which is nearly in jurors' hands. However, that conversation failed to break the deadlock between the two companies.

"The CEOs did speak... [but] there was no resolution," Samsung counsel Kevin Johnson told Koh.

The court mandated conversation was an 11th-hour attempt to settle the companies' high-stakes charges before closing arguments begin tomorrow. The two sides met in person twice as part of court-mandated settlement talks ahead of the trial. Koh instructed the chief executives at both companies to meet once more last week as a last-ditch effort, saying it was "time for peace."

Upon the conclusion of counsels' closing arguments, the nine-person jury will receive a 100-page deliberation instruction document, which is expected to take a couple of hours to read

Jurors will also receive a 21-page tentative verdict form from which they must pick which devices from either side infringe on various patents, a document that Koh worried would confuse jurors because it was "so complex."

"I am worried we might have a seriously confused jury here," Koh told legal counsel from both companies. "I have trouble understanding this, and I have spent a little more time with this than they have."

Jurors will also face the tedious task of assigning damages, a tally that ranges from millions to billions of dollars based on which expert report is used as the guideline.

Apple sued Samsung in 2011, claiming that Samsung copied "the look and feel" of its iPad tablet and iPhone smartphone, costing it more than $2.5 billion. Samsung countersued, claiming Apple infringed on some of its patents