Apple CEO, Tim Cook, and Google CEO, Larry Page, have reportedly talked on the phone concerning the ongoing patent disputes involving the iPhone and iPad maker, and various Android manufacturers. Reuters' Alexei Oreskovic and Poornima Gupta claim the breaksclusive:
Google Inc CEO Larry Page and Apple CEO Tim Cook have been conducting behind-the-scenes conversations about a range of intellectual property matters, including the ongoing mobile patent disputes between the companies, according to people familiar with the matter. The two chief executives had a phone conversation last week, the sources said. Discussions involving lower-level officials of the two companies are also ongoing.
Both mens' predecessors, Steve Jobs of Apple and Eric Schmidt of Google, began the now long-standing feud when Google switched from making a BlackBerry competitor to making an iPhone competitor, and Schmidt left his spot as a member of Apple's board of directors. Jobs later called Android "stolen property" that was being "promiscuously" given away, and threatened to go "thermonuclear" on it. Tim Cook, for his part, has said Apple can't be the developer for the world, and that other companies will have to invent their own stuff.
Google has traditionally been eschewed intellectual property rights enforcement, no prosecuting their own IP but also not always respecting the IP of others. Recently, however, they've begun more aggressive litigation using their newly acquired Motorola division as a spearhead.
Neither overly broad patents nor overly close copying help drive innovation, so anything that moves a settlement forward, Cook and Page on the phone included, is best for the industry and consumers.
Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt once famously had coffee and settled nothing. That was then. Let's hope this is now. Especially when companies like Samsung are getting hit with billion dollar willful infringement verdicts.
Source: Reuters
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