By Shira Ovide
In a glimpse of the financial stakes in the smartphone-patent
wars, Microsoft Corp. said Friday that Samsung Electronics Ltd.
paid the software giant more than $1 billion for an annual fee to
use Microsoft technology in Samsung phones.
Samsung sells smartphones and tablets powered by Google Inc.'s
Android software. But Microsoft has said some of its patents are
included in Android technologies, such as methods for displaying
multiple windows in a Web browser. Therefore, Samsung and other
smartphone makers pay royalty fees to Microsoft for each Android
device they sell.
Neither Samsung nor Microsoft have disclosed previously the size
of these royalty payments. The amount of Samsung's payment made
last fall was included in a previously redacted legal filing in a
monthslong contract dispute between the two companies.
In the legal fight that started this summer, Microsoft
complained that Samsung failed to honor a 2011 patent-licensing
contract between the two companies. Samsung said Microsoft's
purchase of Nokia Corp.'s mobile-phone business in April violated
the terms of a business contract between the companies, according
to the court filing.
Samsung hasn't responded to Microsoft's complaint. A spokeswoman
for the company declined to comment Friday.
Patent disputes have become common in the smartphone age, and
they have spilled repeatedly into courts, including high-profile
tussles between Samsung and Apple Inc. The Microsoft lawsuit shows
intellectual property remains a flash point among technology
giants.
Microsoft is asking a judge to enforce the terms of the 2011
contract with Samsung and declare that the Nokia acquisition
doesn't invalidate the companies' pre-existing agreement. Microsoft
also is seeking $6.9 million in damages because Samsung was late
paying the $1 billion royalty payment owed last fall.
Write to Shira Ovide at shira.ovide@wsj.com
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