Apple and Samsung have been engaged in bitter patent battle all around the globe. And in this patent war Apple has had a upper hand with injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10″ in Germany and in Australia and Netherlands as well. Though Apple still remains Samsung’s one of the largest customers in terms of supplies of parts, both the firms have not yet managed to reach an agreement as their last settlement attempt in June also yielded no results.
Now it seems that Samsung has extended an olive branch to Apple to call it a truce. And if Samsung’s attorney, David Catterns is to be believed Samsung could end up launching the Galaxy Tab in Australia by the next week if Apple if and when Apple accepts the offer. Though if an agreement is not reached upon, it would take some time for the next hearing on the injunction and a long time before the Galaxy Tab sees the light of the day in Australia.
The details of the deal being discussed has not yet been made public, though hope stems from the fact that even Apple’s lead counsel, Steven Burley feels that such an agreement is possible and goes on to say that “[Samsung’s] inconvenience would be diminished and [Apple] would be comforted”.
The statement clearly indicates that once an agreement is reached upon Samsung will be able to launch its tabs in the above markets via some monetary settlement with Apple and other arrangements would be made to deal with future patent issues. Annabelle Bennett, the judge presiding over the case in Australia states that although the current arrangement between the two firms would allow Samsung to release their devices, the case would still not be closed.
The patent battle between the two tech giants was being bitterly fought all this while, with Samsung even planning to delay the launch of iPhone 5 via lawsuits. It would be interesting to see how these developments will affect the future relationship between the two. We can certainly expect Samsung to go ahead with their tactics of affecting iPhone 5 launch and sales if an agreement is not reached.