Google and Apple have agreed to bury the smartphone patent infringement cases on each other and work together to address the issue of patent trolls.
The companies said that they have no plans of issuing cross licenses.
A joint statement issued by the two companies said, "Apple and Google have agreed to dismiss all the current lawsuits that exist directly between the two companies.
"Apple and Google have also agreed to work together in some areas of patent reform. The agreement does not include a cross license."
The two mobile giants have 20 lawsuits filed against each other. These include the patent suit filed by Motorola Mobility against Apple in 2010, and the latter’s counter suit on the former.
Motorola’s suit got transferred to Google with its acquisition of the mobile phone business for $12.5bn in 2012. Earlier this year, Google announced Motorola’s sale, minus all the patents, to Lenovo for $2.9bn.
The truce, however, does not include lawsuits between Apple and Samsung, in which Google is not directly involved but is largely considered to be targeted. Google, too, has reportedly offered to help Samsung in its fight against Apple.
Meanwhile, a former iPhone user, Adrienne Moore, filed a complaint in San Jose court that Apple is not delivering messages sent from the company’s iMessage service to her Android-based Samsung mobile, reported Bloomberg.
She complained that the messages were being blocked since the time she switched from iPhone to Samsung.
iMessage on iOS5 allows users to send messages through data and Wi-Fi without the need of a telecom network. This service doesn’t work if the user switches from Apple.
The lawsuit says that this clause was not disclosed to the complainant.
Photo courtesy of Stockimages/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net
