The ongoing legal battle between both Samsung and Apple could have experienced a temporary ceasefire, after reports of Apple offering a patent license to Samsung have appeared. The company also licensed the patent to Nokia, as The Verge reports in extreme detail.
The patent licensed concerns scrolling in iOS, and the 'overshoot' that is available when scrolling to reveal a gradient background. While it may seem like a rather unusual patent to have, it is reported to be real. Last Summer, Apple and Samsung managed to come to a previous settlement where Apple paid a one-time check and gave royalties to Nokia.
If information is to be believed, Apple has licensed the iOS scrolling patent they have to both IBM and Nokia, and previously offered it to Samsung during the legal battle last year. By itself this could be taken as Apple conceding a loss, since the company is notoriously unwilling to share its patents with anyone, especially when it relates to something as important as iOS.
A previous battle with Nokia, where the Finnish company sued Apple over ten GSM, UMTS and WiFi patents infringed upon in the iPhones, may have spurred the Apple decision to offer patents to the company.
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