US Court Orders Apple to Disclose HTC Settlement Details to Samsung

Samsung (KRX:005930) has taken yet another swing against its archenemy Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), turning up the heat on the prolonged patent war between the two tech giants.

**Apple to Disclose HTC Settlement Details**
On 22 November Reuters reported that a US judge has ordered Apple to disclose to Samsung details of its settlement with the Taiwanese HTC (TPE:2498). Judge Paul Grewal in San Jose, California said the financial terms of the licensing agreement should also be presented for inspection to the Korean company. The copies of the document will be for “attorneys-eyes-only”, meaning they won’t be available to the public.

“HTC is not entitled to special treatment, especially when it has recognized the general sufficiency of the protective order and the integrity of Samsung’s outside counsel,” Judge Grewal wrote.
Samsung’s lawyers have argued that the settlement between HTC and Apple could prove to be “highly relevant” to Apple’s legal attempts to obtain an injunction on the sales of Samsung’s smartphones in the US. According to Bloomberg, Daryl Crone, one of the lawyers in Samsung’s legal fleet, told Judge Grewal by phone that if HTC and Apple agreed on a royalty and settled their patent disputes, that could be used as a strong argument against Apple’s main accusation of having suffered “irreparable harm” by Samsung’s patent infringements.

Earlier this month Apple and HTC settled all their global lawsuits and agreed to a 10-year licensing deal without disclosing any financial details.
**Apple’s Spaceship-Like Headquarters Delayed till 2016**
The construction of Apple’s new headquarters, dubbed “Apple Campus 2”, has been delayed for as much as two years. The reason is that officials in Cupertino, California, where the building site of the ambitious project is situated, may not be able to complete an environmental study until June 2013 at the earliest.

!m[Apple’s New Headquarters Delayed Until 2016](/uploads/story/873/thumbs/pic1_inline.png)The delay comes after last week Apple submitted a revision of its project proposal with a number of modifications including a waiver of having to truck out any dirt and the relocation of a 1,000-seat auditorium farther away from one of the surrounding roads. Most experts doubt that the company will be able to break ground on project in the next year and a half. “They could conceivably break ground in 2013, but only if everything goes smoothly,” said David Brandt, Cupertino’s city manager. “The project is running a little bit slow.”

In order to start construction as soon as possible Apple needs to stop revising its project proposal and let the city council grant its approval. Further delays are foreseeable in the case of legal challenges filed by residents.
The ambitious plan was first revealed by Steve Jobs in June 2011, just four months before his passing. The company intend to employ 14,200 workers to build the four-story, 2.8 million square feet headquarters resembling a massive spaceship. Plans include around 10,500 parking spots, most of which underground, and some 7,000 trees. “Apple Campus 2” is expected to be one of the largest buildings in the world.
According to Aarti Shrivastava, Cupertino’s director of community development, the city council will post Apple’s new building plans after Thanksgiving as it needs time to add additional servers to withstand the torrent of traffic generated by Apple fans.