I don’t know why this seems like it should be filed under “Believe it or Not,” but… Apple and Samsung have settled their seven-year-long iPhone patents-related legal battle.
According to documents filed with the Northern District Court of California this morning, Apple and Samsung say they have agreed to drop and settle the remaining claims and counter claims (and counter-counter claims, is that a real legal term?) in the drawn-out legal battle that last saw the two meet in court in May.
Plaintiff Apple Inc. and Defendants Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Inc., and Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC would like to inform the Court that they have agreed to drop and settle their remaining claims and counterclaims in this matter.
IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED AND AGREED, by and between the parties and subject to the approval of the Court, that pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 41(a) and 41(c), all remaining claims and counterclaims in this action are hereby dismissed with prejudice, to the extent such are still pending, and all parties shall bear their own attorneys’ fees and costs.
No settlement terms were included in the court documents. However Samsung had been ordered to pay Apple $539 million at the end of the May court session.
The legal battle has been going on since 2011, when Apple sued Samsung for violating Apple iPhone design patents with five Android devices sold in 2010 and 2011.
Samsung was found to have infringed on the Apple patents in 2012, and the two parties have been battling in court ever since, with both sides trying to push the amount of damages to a more pleasing amount. Of course, both sides have always had a different idea what pleasing should be.
Samsung has always asserted it should only pay damages on the parts of the iPhone design it ran through its copy machine, while Apple has pushed back, saying it should get payment based on the value of the iPhone as a whole.
Samsung and Apple haven’t as yet commented directly on the settlement, we’ll let you know if they do.
For a full read of the court documents, visit MacRumors.
