Samsung and Microsoft Settle Dispute Over Android Patent Payments

Samsung and Microsoft announced Monday that they have resolved a dispute over a contract that includes patent royalties for Android phones.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Samsung and Microsoft are pleased to announce that they have ended their contract dispute,” both companies said in a statement.

Microsoft had sued Samsung last August, saying that the company was late in paying some of its contractual obligations. In the suit, Microsoft asked the court to declare its contract valid and enforceable and to declare that Samsung owes Microsoft interest for any late payments.

The two companies reached a huge patent deal back in 2011 that has Samsung paying Redmond for each Android device it sells.

At the time of the suit last year, Microsoft deputy general counsel David Howard wrote that “after spending months trying to resolve our disagreement, Samsung has made clear in a series of letters and discussions that we have a fundamental disagreement as to the meaning of our contract.”

Evidently the two sides are now seeing eye to eye, or at least reached a deal they can both live with.

Here’s a copy of Microsoft’s original suit, though many of the good parts are redacted.

Redacted (Public) Complaint by elizabethrecodenet

This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple reasons that we can't rely only on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on.

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. We can’t do that if we have a paywall.

That’s why we also turn to you, our readers, to help us keep Vox free. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today?

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via