Apple Inc. and Google Inc. announced that they have reached an agreement to set aside one of the multiple differences between them and to settle the litigation over several smartphone patents in their battles referring to intellectual property. The agreement is considered to be following the trend of similar settlements between Apple and some of its competitors in the smartphone making industry, such as Nokia and HTC Corp.
The companies made a joint statement, which was cited by the Financial Times: “Apple and Google have agreed to dismiss all the current lawsuits that exist directly between the two companies. Apple and Google have also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform. The agreement does not include a cross licence.”
The companies agreed to drop the lawsuits against each other, and the agreement included the litigation with the Motorola unit of Google, which was also involved in the patent disputes of the U.S.-based technology giants. In January 2014, Google announced that it has agreed to sell its handset unit to Lenovo Group Ltd in a deal estimated at about 2.91 billion dollars. The patent cases between Apple and Samsung Electronics, which uses Google-made Android operating system on their mobile devices, were not part of the agreement.
However, according to Mr. Michael Risch, who is a law professor at Villanova University, the agreement is “largely symbolic”. As reported by Bloomberg, Mr. Risch commented the joint statement of the companies, saying: “Its largely symbolic. Motorola isnt as big of a competitor anymore. When they decide to drop everything with Samsung, then we’ll be talking.”
The companies have spent millions of dollars in legal fees over the patent suits. According to an information disclosed by Apple Inc. it has spent 32 million dollars in legal fees in only of the cases.
Apple Inc. was 1.48% up to close at 597.51 dollars per share yesterday, marking a one-year change of +37.49%. According to the information published on CNN Money, the 44 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Apple Inc. have a median target of 630.00, with a high estimate of 777.00 and a low estimate of 360.00. The median estimate represents a +5.44% increase from the last price of 597.51.
Google Inc. was -0.15% down to close at 528.30 dollars per share yesterday, marking a one-year change of +16.78%. According to the information published on CNN Money, the 42 analysts offering 12-month price forecasts for Google Inc. have a median target of 662.50, with a high estimate of 750.00 and a low estimate of 525.00. The median estimate represents a +25.40% increase from the last price of 528.30.
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