Apple-Samsung Talks Fail; Trial Seems Likely

SAN JOSE (CN) - The CEOs of Apple and Samsung Electronics came away from two days of settlement talks with nothing more than an ever-closer trial on smartphone and tablet computer designs.

Apple's Tim Cook met in San Francisco Monday and Tuesday with Samsung's Choi Gee-sung, but a Samsung official told The Korea Times that the talks failed.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ordered the two CEOs and their attorneys to try to solve their yearlong intellectual property dispute and avoid a trial.

Apple filed suit in April 2011, accusing Samsung of selling knockoff smartphones and tablet computers that "slavishly copy" iPhone and iPad products.

Before and during the settlement talks, both sides filed sharp court filings, Samsung asking for sanctions against Apple, and Apple seeking a preliminary injunction without further hearing.

Samsung attorney Charles Verhoeven sought sanctions against Apple even as the talks proceeded Tuesday, claiming Apple had withheld hundreds of deposition transcripts in violation of a court order.

"In many instances, Samsung had to waste precious deposition time to obtain the same admissions as had already been elicited in other proceedings. Relevant facts were hidden throughout the entirety of discovery, as were relevant witnesses who could have and should have been identified months earlier," Samsung claimed in its motion.

Apple last week for the second time asked the court to Samsung from selling tablet computers. Apple claims immediate action is warranted based on a recent federal appeals court ruling that found Judge Koh was wrong to deny Apple's first motion for a preliminary injunction on the Samsung Tab 10.1.

"Each day that Samsung continues to sell its infringing Tab 10.1 causes additional harm to Apple through design dilution, lost sales, lost market share, and lost future sales of tag-along products," Apple attorney Harold McIlhenny, with Morrison Foerster, wrote in his motion.

Jury selection begins in late July.

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