According to the Wall Street Journal, Google and Apple have decided to drop all lawsuits between each other and instead work toward “some areas of patent reform.” The lawsuits that have been called off are actually between Motorola and Apple, but since Google still technically owns Motorola until the proposed Lenovo deal is finalized, this was their problem to deal with.
The WSJ’s report claims that this truce doesn’t mean that the companies are licensing patents from one another. A statement from Apple also noted that this doesn’t affect Apple’s ongoing patent litigation with Samsung, even though Google’s name has been brought up numerous times since Samsung’s devices in question run Android. Finally, Google still faces litigation from Rockstar Consortium, an Apple led group of companies that has been on the attack against Android since 2013.
This is a positive step for these two companies. Unfortunately, this is by no means the end of the patent wars in this industry.
Via: Wall Street Journal