Apple and Samsung have been battling it out in court ever since Samsung released their Galaxy line of devices.  Samsung fired back by accusing Apple of infringing their 3G and wireless technology, demanding to see Apple’s source codes for the iPhone and iPad to see if future products will still be infringing their patents.

But Apple was victorious in Germany as the Galaxy Tab 10.1 was banned in EU nations, the Netherlands, and Germany as well as in Australia though that was a separate case and was recently overturned.  Samsung suffered a major setback as the Galaxy Tab 7.7 was pulled out in the IFA in Berlin but retaliated when the iPhone 4S was released, asking Apple to release the source code in an attempt to ban the device in Australia.

Though it seems like Samsung is in a very tough position, Samsung is now slowly recovering. Their shares were up by two percent after Apple’s move to ban Samsung products from being sold in the US were declined.

“At this point in the proceedings, although Apple has established a likelihood of success on the merits at trial, there remain close questions regarding the infringement of the accused devices, and Samsung has raised substantial questions regarding the validity of the D’087 patent,” the court ruled.  “Moreover, Apple has not yet established a likelihood of irreparable harm, and the balance of the equities weigh in favour of Samsung.”

The only thing likely to quickly end this patent dispute is a licensing agreement.  But Apple is not known for making patent licensing deals with other companies, especially competitors, right?  Well, this one might not be entirely true.  The Verge got their hand on an evidence that proves Apple had a patent licensing deal with with Nokia and IBM, which also extends to Samsung back in November 2010.

According to The Verge, Patent #7,469,381 which pertains to the “‘scrollback’ behavior of iOS that displays a background texture when you scroll beyond the edge of a document of webpage.  Apple asserted this patent against Samsung as part of its failed attempt to get an injunction against Galaxy devices, and the court order denying the injunction includes general discussion of how past licensing behavior affects the decision of whether or not to grant an injunction. The discussion is nestled among two redacted statements shown to The Verge that confirm the ‘381 patent was licensed to IBM and Nokia, and that Apple offered a license to Samsung in November of 2010 as part of settlement negotiations.”

Now the question is, what went wrong?  If they had a licensing agreement, and Samsung supplied semiconductors to Apple, why did their relationship sour?  Could it be that Apple sees Samsung uncovered their real competition, deciding to no longer play nice? There’s still plenty of speculation to go ’round, and such developments further prove the discord between mobile players right now.   There’s an increasing amount of overlap within the mobile industry as more companies are expected do do more with a given platform, putting everyone in the position to take as much ownership of device and software share.