Samsung turned down Apple's offer of an olive branch 1 year ago

 
Redacted court documents discovered on Saturday revealed that in November 2010, Apple offered to Samsung a license for its scrolling feedback patent. Eventually, IBM and Nokia took up Apple on the offer. This is the same patent that Apple has used as a club to wack HTC in the head with a lawsuit. Before agreeing to a cross-licensing deal, Nokia also had been sued over the infringement of this Apple patent.

Apple later sued Samsung over violating this patent as despite having a good idea that it would prevail in court, Apple tried to offer an olive branch to Samsung by offering them the license, but was turned down. Possible reasons why the Korean company would just say no to Apple include the latter asking too high a price for the license, or perhaps Samsung thought that with its countersuits, Apple would feel pressured and give in. Lastly, it just might have been that Samsung thought it was innocent and did not feel that it infringed on the patent.

What is interesting about the discovery of this deal was that it is known that the late Steve Jobs had threatened to finish off Android, and yet, by offering a deal to Samsung, Jobs had had his foot on the neck of the OS and then lifted his leg.

The patent involved is number 7,469,381 which covers the scrollback feature of iOS that displays a background "texture" when a user scrolls beyond the edge of a web site or document. Apple enlisted this patent when it sought a ban against the sale of Galaxy products in the U.S. which was turned down as we reported.