Microsoft and Samsung taking royalty issues to court

Microsoft and Samsung are taking their royalty dispute to court. For years, Android manufacturers have been paying royalties to Microsoft, but Samsung recently decided that enough was enough. As the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, Samsung has a whole lot of smartphones to be paying royalties on, and it makes sense that it would look for any excuse to get out of paying them. That very thing happened when Microsoft bought Nokia.

Samsung is making the claim that Microsoft violated the royalty contract when it acquired Nokia, as Samsung says that such a move makes Microsoft itself a smartphone manufacturer. Microsoft fired back, claiming that Samsung is simply looking for an excuse not to pay royalties. Microsoft is probably right, but Samsung isn’t conceding that easily and Microsoft is taking the issue to court.

We don’t take lightly filing a legal action, especially against a company with which we’ve enjoyed a long and productive partnership. Unfortunately, even partners sometimes disagree. 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.David HowardMicrosoft

Don’t fret too much though. Samsung and Microsoft have been partners for a long time, and this little spat will likely amount to nothing in the grand scheme of things. More likely than not, the courts will make a decision and both companies will simply take it for what it is and move on. While Samsung does have a bit of a point, Microsoft has a better chance of winning in court, as it initiated the battle, rather than Samsung. Nonetheless, it’ll be interesting to see it play out. If Samsung did manage to score a win, all Android manufacturers signed into the same contract could theoretically break free. And that’s something that we know Microsoft wouldn’t be happy about.

source: androidandme