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Following last month’s announcement that Apple and Samsung had agreed to high-level talks involving the two companies’ CEOs in an attempt to resolve ongoing patent litigation, Reuters provides a preview of the session set to begin today in San Francisco. The talks, which will be mediated by a federal judge, are scheduled to take place over the next two days. Commenting before his departure to the United States for the talks, Samsung mobile division chief JK Shin noted that while significant differences between Apple and Samsung still exist, a number of “negotiation options” remain on the table. “There is still a big gap in the patent war with Apple,” JK Shin said, before departing for the United States for the mediation talks. “But we still have several negotiation options.” Court documents show the two companies have had at least one mediation session, although it is not clear if Cook and Choi were involved. Legal experts are not optimistic that the two companies will reach a settlement, but with courts increasingly pushing companies to seek alternative dispute resolution processes in hopes of staving off drawn-out court battles, Apple and Samsung have agreed to participate in the talks. Samsung is just one of Apple’s main targets in its patent battles with Android-based hardware manufacturers. In another case, Apple succeeded in slowing U.S. imports of several HTC smartphones earlier this month, forcing the company to delay the launch of the Evo 4G LTE on Sprint although HTC has indicated that some shipments of some models are being released by U.S. Customs. But while Apple’s disputes with several Android device manufacturers center on functionality of the devices, the company’s dispute with Samsung extends further to claims that Samsung has “chosen to slavishly copy” the design of Apple’s products with its own line of Galaxy smartphones and tablets. Continue reading →