Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/13/apple_licensing_deal_samsung_2010/
Apple 'offered Samsung $30-per-mobe' patent licence truce
Sammy turned down offer it could definitely refuse
Posted in Phones, 13th August 2012 11:30 GMT
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Apple offered Samsung a patent licensing deal at $30 per smartphone after warning the South Koreans they were infringing its fruity designs, a court heard.
One of the iToy maker's witnesses revealed the snubbed settlement in public on Friday when he mentioned it during the companies' patent trial [1]. Samsung stands accused of ripping off the Apple iPhone for its own products, and denies wrongdoing.
Samsung was warned in August 2010 that its Android-powered gadgets infringed Apple's patents and copied the iPhone, the jury was told. The Cupertino company added: “Many more Apple patents are relevant to the Android platform [and] Apple has not authorised the use of any of these patents.”
Then in October that year, Apple sent over a presentation [2] outlining how Samsung was ripping off its stuff and how much it should pay. The fruity firm offered a licence fee of $30 per smartphone and $40 per tablet.
"Samsung chose to embrace and imitate Apple’s iPhone archetype,” the company told the court. “Apple would have preferred that Samsung request a licence to do this in advance. Because Samsung is a strategic supplier to Apple, we are prepared to offer a royalty-bearing licence for this category of device.”
Apple also said it would offer discounts on the licence price for various categories of phone if Samsung cross-licensed its patents back to Cupertino. The South Korean company would get a 20 per cent discount for a cross-licence, a 40 per cent discount if the operating system on the phone or tablet was already licensed to Apple, and another 20 per cent off for phones that also had non-proprietary features.
In 2010, Apple reckoned Samsung had already clocked up $250m with its allegedly infringing phones.
Samsung refused the licensing deal. The trial continues and is expected to conclude at the end of the month. ®