Week Samsung asked a court to compel Applis to tell him the details of the agreement concluded with HTC, again Apple accepted the Koreans' request, but will provide a redacted version of the document. The redacted version of the agreement concluded between Apple and HTC will hide only the references regarding the price paid for licensing the technologies, an aspect that Samsung would probably have been extremely interested to know. The lawyers from Samsung still asked to receive an unredacted version of the agreement in order to see the money that HTC pays them, but a court will decide if Samsung really needs something like this.
On Friday Samsung's counsel in the Apple case in California brought a motion to compel, demanding access to the newly-minted Apple-HTC license agreement. Apple's response is that Samsung's motion is "moot" because Apple and HTC are happy to provide a redacted version, with only 33 words, which set forth the license fees HTC has to pay under the agreement, being redacted. And even the redacted version will be marked as "Highly Confidential - Attorneys' Eyes Only".
Samsung's lawyers requested access to this document to prove that Apple is willing to license to HTC the technologies on the basis of which Samsung was sued, but if Apple is willing to provide access to the document, then the lawyers are probably wrong. They also want to see what money is paid for these licenses, even if the amounts have any relevance in the lawsuits between Apple and Samsung, and it is hard to believe that a court could allow this.
But Samsung's lawyers still want access to the full, unredacted agreement, including the part on the royalty rate. It's obvious that HTC doesn't want its competitors to know about its cost structures. While HTC CEO Peter Chou said in interviews that the amounts on which the media speculated ($6-$8 per unit) were "outrageous" and not true, the world will never know the amount unless the full agreement is disclosed at some point, which is very unlikely to happen.
