The United States District for the District of Delaware has ordered HTC and Apple to meet to discuss a potential settlement in a long-running patent lawsuit. The representatives who go to this mediation must have the authority to make independent decisions, but it's not known whether the CEOs will attend, as they will for upcoming settlement talks between Apple and Samsung. The meeting is set to take place on August 28th and be moderated by Magistrate Judge Sherry R. Fallon.

The lawsuit stretches back to last year but has heated up lately, with HTC's One X and Evo 4G LTE phones being delayed at US customs because of a broad ban Apple won against HTC's phones with the US International Trade Commission, which found HTC to be infringing on a single Apple patent. HTC is currently routing around this with a custom Android build, but we doubt this meeting will be the last we see of the dispute.