Samsung’s Mobile Chief To Meet Google’s Schmidt — Apple Patents Battle On The Agenda?

Samsung’s mobile chief Shin Jong-kyun will meet with Google’s Eric Schmidt on Thursday to discuss Samsung’s patents battle with Apple, The Korea Times is reporting.

“I will meet Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt on Thursday in Seoul,” Shin Jong-kyun is quoted as saying at a launch event held in Seoul for the unveiling of the Galaxy Note II.

The paper reports that Samsung — which uses Google’s Android OS to power smartphones and tablets — plans to pull Google into its patents battle with Apple. But it says Shin Jong-kyun declined to give further details about what would be discussed, saying only that strategic meetings with carriers in the U.S. would take place next week.

We’ve reached out to Samsung and Google for confirmation of the meeting and what will be discussed. Update: Google said it doesn’t have any comment to make.

In August Apple won a $1.049 billion patent damages ruling against Samsung for infringing design and software patents. Earlier this month Apple filed more legal filings against Samsung — requesting a further $707 million in damages and also filing a request for a sales ban on all of Samsung’s Android handsets. Meanwhile, Samsung is also litigating against Apple on patents grounds — most recently Samsung confirmed it plans to add the iPhone 5 to its ‘accused products’ list in an ongoing suit.

The ongoing legal battles do not appear to be putting Samsung off its mobile market share lunch: the paper also reports Samsung has revised its total handset sales target for this year — to 400 million, up from the 370 million originally projected.

One example of Samsung ramping up its mobile efforts is that it’s pushing the sequel to its Galaxy Note phablet — the Galaxy Note II — to a lot more carriers. “In the United States, the Galaxy Note was only introduced via AT&T. But the Note II will be released by all major U.S. carriers,” Shin Jong-kyun told the paper.

Apple sold five million units of its latest smartphone, the iPhone 5, on the opening weekend alone. At the iPhone 5 launch event, CEO Tim Cook announced that a total of 400 million iOS devices (iPhones, iPads, iPod Touches) had been sold as of June 2012 — which may be one reason why Samsung is bullishly rounding up its handset sales projection to a cool 400 million.

recent forecast by Horace Dediu of Asymco — using iTunes accounts to project iOS device sales — predicts Apple will pass one billion iOS devices sales by late 2014 or early 2015.