While the litigation drags on between Apple and Samsung, Reuters has given us some interesting insight into the whole saga. It seems that Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, opposed the idea of taking Samsung to court and certainly never wanted the legal battle to be so long or brutal.

According to the report, Cook’s opposition was because of the Korean company’s long time role as a component supplier for Apple. Cook saw the implications of going down this legal route, having already hit Apple in some supply chains. Analysts estimate that Apple purchased about $8 million worth of parts from Samsung in 2012.

We know the late Steve Jobs wanted to wage “thermo-nuclear” legal war on Android , and his hatred for the open source platform was clear and relentless.

As was seen in courtroom evidence, there was a lot of communication between the two companies, with Apple executives warning Samsung that its designs were becoming too close to those of the iPhone, and later, the iPad. When it later became apparent that Samsung did not want to bow down to Apple’s wishes, Cook finally realised there was no choice for the Cupertino firm.

However, it has come to a point that as a result of a recent court ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh, Apple has been unable to prove that their sales have been damaged in any way by the  availability of Samsung’s devices on the market.

Koh’s ruling overruled the jury’s findings from August 2012 that Samsung intentionally violated Apple’s patents, one that came as a huge victory for Apple at the time.

Since the first suit was filed,  Cook has repeatedly stated that he would prefer to resolve the matter amicably and outside of court. Last year he said:  “I’ve always hated litigation, and I continue to hate it.” Unfortunately, it is now too late to mend the broken relationship between the two companies which was once massively profitable for both parties.

Some parts of the relationship remain in tact, but once those contracts run out, we can’t see the two ever working together on such a large scale in the future.