Prior to filing suit against Samsung for alleged copyright infringement, Apple approached its rival four times in 2010 in an attempt to avoid resorting to litigation.
Details of the meetings between Apple's and Samsung's lawyers were revealed in an Apple court filing discovered by The Verge. The first meeting took place in July 2010, and Apple soon after made three more attempts to broker a deal with Samsung to no avail.
The meetings took place both at Apple's corporate headquarters in Cupertino, Calif., as well as in Samsung's home country of Korea. At one meeting in Korea in August of 2010, Apple representatives showed a presentation to Samsung officials entitled "Samsung's Use of Apple Patents in Smartphones," detailing its belief that Samsung was infringing on two patents.
Last year, it was first revealed that late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs contacted Samsung in 2010 in an attempt to resolve the patent dispute between the two companies. But the extent of talks between Apple and Samsung was not known until Apple disclosed it in court.
Apple eventually sued Samsung in April of 2011, accusing its rival of copying the look and feel of the iPhone and iPad with its own smartphone and tablet products. Samsung quickly fired back with its own accusations, and the two companies are now involved in lawsuits that spread across four continents.
Details on three of the meetings between Apple and Samsung, as portrayed in Apple's filing in California federal court, are included below:
On or about August 4, 2010, Apple representatives met with Samsung in Korea and showed a presentation titled 'Samsung's Use of Apple Patents in Smartphones.' This presentation emphasized Samsung's copying of the iPhone and identified two of the patents-in-suit (the '002 and '381 patents), giving Samsung actual notice of at least these patents, and many more.
On or about August 26, 2010, Apple sent Samsung an electronic archive file containing claim charts further illustrating Samsung's infringement of Apple patents. A presentation document that accompanied these claim charts identified the '002 and '381 patents as two patents that Samsung products infringed, and it substantiated these allegations with text from the patents and photographs of Samsung devices illustrating infringing functionality. Apple later presented these slides to Samsung at a meeting in Cupertino, California on or about September 9, 2010.
