The court-ordered mediation in the bitter Apple-Samsung patent dispute is underway, although no-one has seen any sign of the stars of the show, CEOs Tim Cook and Choi Gee-Sung.

Scheduled to take place in California yesterday and today, the talks are an attempt to achieve a clean resolution in the ongoing dispute, which now stretches across 20 cases in 10 countries, according to Reuters.

Most commentators hold out little hope the action will prove successful, particularly given that both CEOs will be flanked by teams of lawyers. If the dispute remains unresolved, the case will go to court at the end of July.

Tim Cook, who took over from Steve Jobs as Apple CEO last year, has just been found to be clearly the highest-paid American CEO last year, earning a massive US$378 million in remuneration, mostly in restricted stock grants. The next-closest CEO, Oracle's Larry Ellison, earned US$76 million.