Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) have come to terms and will drop all lawsuits against each other regarding smartphones, both companies announced in a joint statement. Both the companies have agreed upon a truce, which also includes Apple’s patent proceedings with the Google’s Motorola unit. In this case, Apple was accused of infringing patent and was dragged into the court by Motorola, in 2010. Apple counter-sued Motorola in the case.
No breather for Samsung
A spokeswoman for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) said that there will be no effect on the lawsuits filed against Samsung Electronics. In all the cases against Samsung, Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) is mentioned frequently because Samsung smartphones run on Google’s Android operating system. However, Google is not a formal part of the litigation related to Samsung. Earlier this month, court ordered Samsung to pay $119 million in damages to Apple for infringing three of its patents. Apple was, however, expecting a far larger amount of money as compensation.
Google took the decision to settle with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) after it was taken at the receiving end by the U.S. and Europe for the legal strategy it adopted with Motorola’s patents. Motorola has demanded a ban on the Apple products based on the patents that according to the regulators Apple needed to license.
For its part, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will not continue fighting the case against Motorola after the company is being taken over by Lenovo.
Long battle between Apple, Google
Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG) were once cronies, but now both the companies are aggressively heading and pitching on the same technology, targeting the same engineering folks in every segment like maps, voice based search, streaming video devices and web browsers.
Before settling the issues, both the companies were in tussle over 20 lawsuits against each other in the United States and Germany. Spokespersons of both the entities mentioned that the settlement excludes an agreement to license each other’s patents. Also, the companies said that they will work in close collaboration with each other on “some areas of patent reform.”
Back in 2012, Google acquired the Motorola Mobility unit for $12.5 billion and since then it was the search engine giant’s responsibility to look into the case to obtain string of patents used by Motorola. This year Lenovo has acquired Motorola from Google for $2.9 billion, whereby Google would retain Motorola’s patents.
