Apple co-founder calls on company to drop Samsung patent case

Steve Wozniak says the dispute is doing neither company any good

Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, has called on the company to drop its patent case with South Korea's Samsung. He also claimed that new CEO Tim Cook is keen to resolve the dispute.

At a lecture at Seoul's Hanyang University, Wozniak said: "I have no details and paid no attention to the talks between Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Choi Gee-sung. But Cook would want all the lawsuits to disappear... and to move the company on a forward course."

However, speaking to press after the lecture, Wozniak said that he was less than impressed with the Samsung products at the centre of the intellectual property dispute. "I saw Samsung's Galaxy Note when it first came out in a Verizon store in the United States. And I looked at it and wasn't impressed by the overall cost and inner devices," he said.

He also criticised Korean companies for lacking in identifiable, innovative design. "You have to burrow for ideas, but sometimes it's not like, oh my gosh I can do that too, I can do it a little better or a little cheaper," he said. "I can do it so different, a whole different approach. That is real creativity," he said.

While Wozniak maintains a connection with the company, he ended full-time employment with Apple in 1987. He designed the hardware, circuit boards, and operating system for the Apple I single-handed, co-founding Apple with Steve Jobs in April 1976.