Samsung and Microsoft bury the hatchet, but the details are confidential.
Microsoft and Samsung have settled their six-month-long dispute over Android patent royalties. The two companies posted identical statements on their respective blogs today, saying:
“Samsung and Microsoft are pleased to announce that they have ended their contract dispute in U.S. court as well as the ICC arbitration. Terms of the agreement are confidential.” – Samsung’s Jaewan Chi, Executive Vice President and Global Legal Affairs & Compliance Team and Microsoft’s David Howard, Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel.
The disagreement stems from a seven-year patent cross-licensing deal that the two tech giants made in 2011. The deal gave Samsung’s Android phones patent protection from Microsoft, but the company had to pay Microsoft over $1 billion a year.
Samsung took issue with the contract when Microsoft bought Nokia’s Devices division—which it said was a violation of the agreement—and withheld payments. Microsoft disagreed, and filed a lawsuit.
Microsoft has a ton of operating system patents from its work with Windows, and the company uses them offensively against Android OEMs with the goal of getting them to sign licensing agreements. In 2013, Microsoft said over 50 percent of Android OEMs had signed deals with the company, and one estimate put the company’s yearly Android patent earnings at $2 billion a year.
Confidentiality has been a key strategy for Microsoft during the whole process, too. We only have a rough list of the applicable patents thanks to the Chinese Government, and just like this one, all of the agreements are confidential.
Source: arstechnica.com
