Apple and Samsung were reportedly in talks to come to some sort of Apple/Google style settlement/agreement over ongoing lawsuits, and new reports on Tuesday said that Apple is responsible for those talks breaking down. Philip Elmer-Dewitt points out that may not be exactly the case.
Hang on, this gets tricky.
Those aforementioned reports are based on something from the Korea Times on Monday, claiming there were “working-level discussions” happening to settle all of this once and for all. On Tuesday, the story was that Samsung tried its hardest to offer an olive branch, but gosh darn if meanyhead Apple was simply not having it. How terrible of Apple to treat Samsung this way!
Well, as it happens, both companies filed a joint statement with Judge Lucy Koh that makes very clear there is no way in this universe or any other that these talks even could happen, let alone are currently taking place. Do take the time to read the joint statement, it is brief and also the nicest sounding smack talk I have read in a long long time.
Of particular interest are highlighted quotes from Samsung attorney John Quinn of Quinn Emanuel. He calls Apple "a jihadist," which is one of the nicer things he had to say, and insisted that Apple will never receive a penny of the roughly US$1 billion the company has so far been awarded by U.S. juries. This is consistent with Samsung's track record of infringement coupled with stall tactics designed to minimize the company's inevitable penalty for that infringement.
So here’s how it breaks down: All the reports of Apple-Samsung talks breaking down are bogus, regardless of where blame is laid for said talks breaking down, because there never were talks in the first place.
I wanted this all to finally be over, but if we’re just going to spin off from the verdict into some alternate universe, it looks like I’ll need to make more popcorn. And I'd like an entertainingly weird universe, if there's a way I get to vote on that at all.