If it was not bad enough that Samsung continue fighting their eternally waging patent war with Apple, then you might remember the South Korean giant more recently also found themselves in a bit of a domestic spat with Microsoft. To briefly recap, Microsoft was suing Samsung on the grounds that Samsung had not paid Microsoft previously contracted royalty fees, for patents on android phones. The original deal was a billion dollar deal which meant Samsung were due to pay these routine royalty amounts every time they sold a device. That said, apparently Samsung stopped the payments and Microsoft began legal action to recover the said amounts.
Well, that was all at the start of last year and by October, Samsung had decided to counter-sue Microsoft for the same claimed amount. According to Samsung, Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia effectively meant they could no longer collaborate without breaking Antitrust legislation. From Samsung’s point-of-view, once Nokia had been purchased, Microsoft instantly became a hardware competitor, which was not part of the original agreement. As such, Samsung was asking the courts to effectively null-and-void the original agreement, the outstanding amounts and any interest owed on them.
Well, another six months (or so) later and it finally looks as though the issue had been laid to rest. Both Samsung and Microsoft today sent out joint press releases confirming that they had reached an agreement. The releases by each company were identical and as follows “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 Jae Wan Chi, Executive Vice President and Global Legal Affairs & Compliance Team and Microsoft’s David Howard, Corporate Vice President and Deputy General Counsel.””
As you can see, from the release, no details were provided as to what the agreement means and as such we have no idea what the terms of the resolve are. But it is presumed both are probably happy enough to see the end of what could have been another very long ongoing legal battle. Are you happy the two have finally come to an arrangement? Will we be seeing more collaboration again now between the two in the future? Let us know your thoughts.
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