Though Steve Jobs famously told biographer Walter Isaacson that he was willing to go "thermonuclear" on Android, it appears the Apple has offered to license some of its patents to Motorola and Samsung in order to limit the ongoing patent litigation between the smartphone makers.
According to sources speaking to Dow Jones Newswires, Apple has offered to license its smartphone-related patents in exchange for royalty payments, "among other terms," in order to settle some or all of the pending lawsuits involving Samsung and Motorola. Patent infringement lawsuits between the companies are currently underway in both the US and Germany, and are pending in Australia, the UK, and Japan.
Jobs vowed to spend "every penny" of Apple's billions in the bank to stick it to Android. "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product," he told Isaacson. Jobs also reportedly told then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt that no amount of money could settle the matter.
However, Apple has already admitted in one court filing that it attempted to work out a licensing deal with Samsung in 2010 before filing a massive US lawsuit against the company in April 2011, and following it up with lawsuits in Germany and Australia.
Apple hasn't been particularly successful in winning preliminary injunctions against its competitors, which might otherwise block sales and force some kind of agreement. But Apple's near $100 billion cash hoard also means it could afford to wait out the far more lengthy process of a full trial. Since the pace of innovation in the smartphone market is much faster than typical court proceedings, however, Apple may be inclined to make some limited licensing offers in order to focus more energy on R&D.
Motorola and Samsung haven't been especially successful against Apple either, as both companies' attempts to use 3G wireless patents against Apple have essentially backfired. Both companies may likewise be more amenable to a settlement now then they have been in the past.
Apple isn't planning to offer licenses to all comers or rely on generating royalty revenue, according to one of Dow Jones' sources. That jibes with its overall strategy so far—Apple typically prefers to use its patents as a strategic advantage by keeping new technologies to itself. However, Apple has reportedly asked for as much as $15 per handset to license certain technologies. That isn't far from the rumored $10 per handset Microsoft has asked for from Android handset vendors—70 percent of them have taken Microsoft's offer—and is clearly designed to make sure it profits from the sale of each Android handset.
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