Apple and Google In Arbitration Mode Over Smartphone Patents

Apple and Google are in discussions to potentially end the patent litigation against each other. According to a court filing, the two companies are discussing the idea of resolving their patent disputes over standard essential patents through arbitration.

The companies went over some proposals about hammering some kind of global licensing agreement and both agree that a binding arbitration may be the right thing to do.

Apple is also interested in resolving its dispute with Motorola completely and agrees that binding arbitration may be the best vehicle to resolve the parties’ dispute. Accordingly, on November 8, 2012, Apple sent Motorola a letter agreeing that the parties should enter into arbitration and proposing the parameters of the arbitration.

On November 13, 2012, Motorola responded to Apple setting forth further proposals for the scope of the arbitration, and the parties are now negotiating how to proceed. Included in the parties’ discussions are proposals for a stand-still to the parties’ pending litigations.

So what does this mean? Discussions, not a resolution yet. Stay tuned, folks.