There is no stopping Apple and Samsung from waging their legal battles as top executives by both firms failed anew to seal a deal that could end their year-long conflict, according to reports by Reuters.

The news agency said Apple chief executive Tim Cook met last week with Samsung's big bosses led by Shin Jong-kyun and Choi Gee-sung, mobile division chief and company chair respectively, to possibly iron out their differences but to no avail.

The main point of contention is the 'standard essential patents' that Samsung holds on smartphones' 3G connectivity behaviour, which the Asian company aims to push to become industry standard.

But that end will not be reached unless the contending parties accept compromises that in the future could define fair and reasonable terms in the licensing of disputed technologies.

Apparently, Mr Cook and his Samsung counterparts could not sing the same tune in terms of dollar values just so the two tech titans can go ahead with their respective businesses and continue wowing the world with their cool devices.

That means the U.S. patent trial pitting the two will have to go ahead but according to CNET and as wished by the courts, there still hope for a likely settlement between the warring parties even as arguments were being exchanged by Apple and Samsung lawyers.

The same scenario is being repeated in the Australian theatre of the two titans' ongoing legal skirmishes, with Apple and Samsung representatives seemingly more inclined to disagree than to fix their issues.

According to Bloomberg, Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett was simply exasperated at the start of the proceedings on Monday that she asked: "Why on earth are these proceedings going ahead?"

The long-drawn dispute was described by Justice Bennett as 'ridiculous', Bloomberg said, as she ordered both lawyers from Apple and Samsung to convince her by the end of the week why a mediation was out of the question.

Analysts said beyond the patent claims and technological advantages being brandished by both Apple and Samsung, the thought of lording over an industry that generates hundreds of billons each year is the most compelling reason for the tussle.

Imagine a cash register that rings some $US312 billion per year, the amount that according to Bloomberg was delivered by the smartphone market to industry players in 2011, and most definitely any company would go crazy in ensuring that it gets the largest if not the whole pie.

And in the likelihood that the technologies being claimed by Apple and Samsung become industry standard then more windfalls should be forthcoming, according to The Wall Street Journal, to the winning camp.

To be sure, nobody in Apple or in Samsung would want to be labelled as the whining quarter once all the legal questions have been answered and be seen in the whole process as licking their wound while paying their dues to the better firm.