Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) CEO Tim Cook and Samsung Electronics CEO Choi Gee-sung will participate in two days of mediation talks starting today in San Francisco in hopes of putting the long-simmering patent feud between the two companies to rest. The talks will also include the companies' general counsels and are expected to be completely confidential. The two companies, the world's two largest smartphone makers in the first quarter, have been locked in a worldwide patent battle since last year. Apple first sued Samsung in April 2011, claiming that Samsung "slavishly" copied its iPhone design. Samsung countersued and since then the patent battle between the companies has spread to multiple continents, reaching dozens of cases in 10 countries. Article