Google Inc chief executive Larry Page and Apple CEO Tim Cook have been conducting behind-the-scenes talks about a range of intellectual property matters, including the mobile patent disputes between the companies, people familiar with the matter said.
The two executives had a phone conversation last week, the sources said. Discussions involving lower-level officials of the two companies are also ongoing.
The conversation did not result in any formal agreement, but the two executives agreed to continue talking, according to one source.
Page and Cook are expected to talk again in the coming weeks, though no firm date has been set, the sources said on Thursday. One of the sources said that a meeting had been scheduled for yesterday, but had been delayed for reasons that were unclear.
The two companies are keeping lines of communication open at a high level against the backdrop of Apple’s legal victory in a patent infringement case against Samsung Electronics Co, which uses Google’s Android software.
One possible scenario under consideration could be a truce involving disputes over basic features and functions in Google’s Android mobile software, one source said.
However, it was unclear whether Page and Cook were discussing a broad settlement of the various disputes between the two firms, most of which involve the burgeoning mobile computing area, or are focused on a more limited set of issues.
Competition between Google and Apple has heated up in recent years with the shift from PCs to mobile devices. Google’s Android software, which Apple’s late founder Steve Jobs denounced as a “stolen product,” has become the world’s No. 1 smartphone operating system. The popularity of the software has been in tandem with patent infringement lawsuits involving various hardware vendors that use it, including Samsung and HTC Corp (宏達電).
The latest complaint was filed by Motorola Mobility, now a unit of Google, against Apple at the US International Trade Commission claiming some features of Apple’s devices infringe on its patents.
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