Thanks to Apple's legal spat with Samsung, more
details are revealed in a heavily-redacted copy of their agreement.
Most of the legal settlement between Apple and HTC were made public today, thanks to thanks to Apple's dispute with Samsung.
When the settlement was announced last month, few details were released, other than it was a 10-year joint licensing agreement for all current and future patents from both companies. However, now it looks like both companies will have nonexclusive access to certain of each other's patents, according to a heavily-redacted copy of the settlement agreement release this evening (see below). While Apple also agrees not to sue over certain products, it appears Apple's design patents are excluded from the agreement.
The document's release was approved earlier this week by U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh, who said that while details of pricing and royalty rates for patents from both companies should be kept under wraps from public view, the same does not hold true for the rest of the agreement. Samsung's effort to bring the agreement into its spat with Apple was to see whether some of the same patents in the case were included as part of the agreement.
Late last month, Samsung's outside lawyers were given permission to view confidential details of the agreement. Samsung specifically said it wanted to see which patents were included as part of the agreement since there may be some overlap with the ones used in the case between it and Apple. That includes the '381 and '915 patents, which cover "bounce back" and scrolling and zooming, respectively.
The document's release comes on the eve of as both companies returning to court for a hearing that is expected to iron out some of the aftermath of the August jury verdict that landed squarely in Apple's favor. Some of that includes a motion by Apple to permanently ban at least eight of Samsung's devices in the U.S., as well as one by Samsung that seeks to get the entire trial thrown out.
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