Samsung and Apple CEOs to discuss lawsuit settlement

SEOUL: The chiefs of Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc. will meet to discuss settling a bitter two year legal battle over designs and technologies of smartphones and tablets.
A filing with the US District court in San Jose showed the CEOs will meet by or before Feb. 19.
The agreement was made in response to a court order to submit a proposal for settlement discussions before a new trial begins in March.
The same court ordered them to meet in 2012 for settlement talks.
Samsung declined to comment.
Many industry watchers predict the two companies will ultimately settle patent lawsuits outside court.
A report, meanwhile, said Taiwan’s Pegatron Corp, an assembler of Apple’s iPhone 5C, is expected to win half of the orders from the US tech giant for its next smartphone model.
In order to meet the demand, Pegatron has started building a new plant at Kunshan, a satellite city near Shanghai where all its iPhones are assembled, the Liberty Times said without identifying its source.
The paper said the Kunshan plant is scheduled to become operational in the middle of the year and start mass production late this year, when Apple is expected to roll out its iPhone 6.
It said Pegatron expects its revenue to rise to Tw$950 billion ($31.5 billion) this year, from Tw$882 billion the previous year, thanks largely to Apple orders.
A company official told AFP the new plant at Kunshan was intended to meet demand for the next two to three years, but did not elaborate.