The fundamental concepts behind each of its smartphone technologies has caused a tremendous disagreement among Google Inc. and Apple Inc. These two Silicon Valley giants have been in legal battle since 2010, when Motorola sued Apple for patent infringement. Apple soon sued Motorola back. In 2012, Google acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. Three years, and nearly two dozen lawsuits later, the two companies are agreeing to dismiss its disagreements. After a long court battle over intellectual property; all current lawsuits that exist directly between them, as well as all patent disputes over smartphone technology, are finally being dropped.

This comes soon after a more prominent patent feud that recently ended between Apple and Samsung that two weeks ago. Samsung was accused and tried of violating three Apple mobile patents, ending in a $120 million settlement that Samsung ended paying Apple. Google's Android OS and Apple's iOS remain the top operating systems in the entire world. Some may find it confusing why Apple would want to play nice with Google and Google's Android; one of the most popular operating systems in the world, as well as the highest in competition. The New York Times has stated that the two share common enemies, “so-called patent trolls, or businesses that exist solely to buy patents so they can sue others”.

Patent trolls are a huge problem. As unbelievable as this sounds, both Apple and Google have been sued close to 200 times in the last five years by such businesses. Apple happens to be the top company that has been victimized for patent lawsuits. In efforts to combat this problem, “both companies earlier this year asked the Supreme Court to make it easier to collect lawyer's fees from patent holders who lose frivolous patent suits”.

Although the companies declined to comment on why they finally reached this agreement, we can assume it's because fighting wasn't getting them anywhere. It was also a a waste of energy and resources, so it's time they put those resources into something more productive, competition. According to Wired.com, there are three possibilities: “Either Apple paid cash to make the suits go away; Google accepted some relatively small figure to simply save face and end the fight; or both sides decided that the courts, in their rulings, weren't likely to give either of them much of a competitive edge over the other”. I guess you could say, why battle over one another, when you can battle in the marketplace?