Microsoft Files Legal Action Against Samsung Over Android Patent Dispute 83
DroidJason1 writes: Microsoft has filed a contract dispute lawsuit against Samsung over what Microsoft claims is a breach of contract by Samsung involving Android patent royalties. Back in 2011, Samsung voluntarily entered into a legally binding contract with Microsoft in a cross-licensing IP agreement involving Android patents. Samsung has grown over the past few years and now believes that Microsoft's recent acquisition of Nokia nulls the agreement. Microsoft has gone to court and is asking to settle the disagreement with Samsung in order to continue the original agreement.
Laugh all the way to the bank (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Laugh all the way to the bank (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't really comment without seeing in full, the original agreement, and preferably scrutinising it in detail, along with any precedent in the relevant courts.
There could have, for example, been agreements as to Microsoft not doing some things in the phone space - such as for example selling android phones - that it's reasonable to argue (from Samsungs perspective) Microsoft has breached, voiding the original deal.
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Err, he commented specifically to say that we don't have full information. He didn't say that Microsoft was definitely right or wrong, just offered a possible example of why Samsung might feel they have a case.
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That would be one sweet booby trap if Nokia management started work on those android phones post sale agreement, pre-sale completion, just to have it blow up on Microsoft as revenge for the gutting Microsoft performed on Nokia.
It's possible, but in this instance, it's more likely just their own slimy business practices catching up with them.
Back in April, the Chinese government released the list of 310 patents Microsoft was using to extort Android vendors. M-Cam (a global IP underwriting group) analysed the patents and found that the patents were mostly non-commercial, expired or invalid.
They speculated that:
”With this disclosure, China may be attempting to counteract Microsoft’s chokehold on the smartphone market. By disclosing the detailed list of these patents, companies who currently pay a license to Microsoft for the Android platform may discover that they have patents on the same technologies which precede Microsoft’s patents. This may create an opening for them to either negotiate a better deal or demand that Microsoft license from them,” M-Cam’s report said.
So it looks like Samsung might not only have a good case to halt payment, but may also have grounds for a countersuit
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So it looks like Samsung might not only have a good case to halt payment, but may also have grounds for a countersuit to get back the money MS has already illegally extracted.
I'd bet you can voluntarily "license" expired patents, if you desire to do so. It will all come down to the wording on the agreement. I'd bet Samsung will lose, since they are even more slimy than Microsoft and Microsoft has proven one thing over the years: they have good lawyers. (Whereas, Samsung has largely proven the opposite for their lawyers.)
Re:Laugh all the way to the bank (Score:4, Informative)
It's difficult to read it and not feel all warm and fuzzy about Microsoft and their seemingly reluctant, no other recourse lawsuit of Samsung, their dearest friend.
I don't know who's right or wrong here, or even if that belief set enters into the equation, but Microsoft looks good out of the gate.
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the Microsoft press release (by David Howard) is impeccable
Huh?
It looks like standard slimy MBA weasel-words to me, and will have no bearing on the outcome of the court case.
Whatever the merit of the lawsuit, this press release is way more reptilian and cunning than warm and fuzzy.
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MS has a problem complaining to the SEC... after all it is already convicted of illegal anti-competitive practices, and is a monopoly as well.
One possible problem for MS is that Samsung could claim fraud by claiming payment for patents that have expired, and for patents that are invalid.
Now that the list of patents is public, a number of entries are looking shaky...
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And Apple was not supposed to be involved in music, just computers.
Re:Laugh all the way to the bank (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod me flamebait, but I am with Microsoft on this one. As mentioned in their press release at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us... [microsoft.com], Samsung agreed that "Microsoft will receive royalties for Samsung’s mobile phones and tablets running the Android mobile platform".
I don't know how Samsung thinks it can use Microsoft products without paying for them. I paid for my copy of Windows, and I expect Samsung to do the same.
its very simple. They are not using microsoft products. This is not about Windows. This is Microsoft's attempt to use software patents to steer people away from using Android and Chrome OS on their general purpose computing devices. this is about software patents that should have never been filed and should have never been granted. The supreme court has recently spoken regarding this matter. loading text before images is not patentable along with the myriad of other junk software patents that Microsoft is using against Android.
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"F" M$.
And Beta? :-)
Re: Laugh all the way to the bank (Score:2, Interesting)
Whether you think Microsoft's position is meritless or not, Samsung entered into a contract with them. They didn't ask a court for a legal opinion, they just stopped paying. You can't make unilateral decisions like that. They know they're stuck and the courts will reinstate the payments, but their long-standing MO is to do something illegal and then keep other companies tied up in litigation until the point is moot or the other side has run out of money. I'm not even just talking about Appleâ"they've d
Re: Laugh all the way to the bank (Score:5, Informative)
"Whether you think Microsoft's position is meritless or not, Samsung entered into a contract with them. They didn't ask a court for a legal opinion, they just stopped paying. You can't make unilateral decisions like that. "
Err - no.
In very rare circumstances do you ask a court to rule on a contract before anything has happened.
Their general response will be 'dismissed, you bear court costs, that's why you pay lawyers'.
The courts are in general not interested in offering legal advice - that's what you get expensive lawyers for.
This is exactly how contract law normally works.
X does something.
Y thinks they breached their contract, and consults their lawyers who agree that X breached the contract and has no right to future payment.
X says they diddn't, and their lawyers disagree.
Y stops paying.
X takes Y to court for non-payment.
Y cannot - at the first step - in most cases ask the court for an opinion.
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"In very rare circumstances do you ask a court to rule on a contract before anything has happened." -- queazocotal
That's my understanding too--a court generally gets involved when someone alleges someone else has broken the law, not when someone is considering doing something and wants to check it won't break the law. I expect Dixie_Flatline got the opposite view from the linked Microsoft or WinBeta articles, both of which imply otherwise (although neither directly state it). I'd hazard a guess that the W
Re: Laugh all the way to the bank (Score:3)
Re: Laugh all the way to the bank (Score:2)
Re:Laugh all the way to the bank (Score:5, Insightful)
TBH if microsoft have continuously failed to gain traction in the mobile phone market, I don't really see why its reasonable for them to tax the companies who've made a product people want to use.
Re: Laugh all the way to the bank (Score:2)
Because that's not how it works. And if those companies are successful by using technology that Microsoft invented or has acquired patents for, I'm not sure why you think the legal system shouldn't apply to them. If they can't succeed without Microsoft's patents, it implies they have some value, even if Microsoft hasn't been able to leverage that value. If they don't want to pay, they can invent a way around Microsoft's patents.
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But the reason that say android is successful is probably not because of any specific patented technology it uses, rather it has a good enough user interface and google made it freely available for a while. The specific innovation behind android that led to its success is its open nature. None of microsoft's patents contribute to this.
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Also, Microsoft products? This seems to be about patents, and Android != Windows.
Maybe it has since determined that none of the patents MS was holding in that regard are valid?
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I don't know if the headline is just poorly written, but it seems to suggest that Microsoft is suing Samsung for Android patents.
Microsoft owns Android patents? Since when?
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A long time. Most tablet and phone manufacturers pay Android royalties to MS for patents which have never been publicly disclosed. Nobody knows for sure (except certain corporate lawyers) what these patents entail. It may be that the royalty costs are just lower than the cost of the legal years required to invalidate the patents.
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Nobody knows for sure (except certain corporate lawyers) what these patents entail.
They do now. The Chinese Government released details of all 310 Microsoft patents used in Android licensing agreements last month. You can download the list here: http://images.mofcom.gov.cn/pe... [mofcom.gov.cn] (warning: docx)
That could be another reason why Samsung is now willing to contest the extortion. Very few of the patents are novel or non-obvious.
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How can a patent not be disclosed to the public, unless it's some kind of national security thing? Here's one of the patents listed:
Oh, this makes my head hurt. No wonder Samsung is telling Microsoft where they can stick their patents.
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Mod me flamebait, but I am with Microsoft on this one.
As mentioned in their press release at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us... [microsoft.com], Samsung agreed that
"Microsoft will receive royalties for Samsung’s mobile phones and tablets running the Android mobile platform".
I don't know how Samsung thinks it can use Microsoft products without paying for them. I paid for my copy of Windows, and I expect Samsung to do the same.
The shills are strong on this one ;) what a surprise.
Perhaps you could just post the details of the Samsung/Microsoft agreement, since you obviously have it, to be able to judge the merit on this?
I also suspect Samsung has paid for all of its copies of windows.. but then that has absolutely nothing to do with this... does it.
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So you are one of those guys that thinks that if you get abused, everyone should be abused?
Samsung: so sue us (Score:4, Insightful)
Samsung's penalties have been pathetically small, so there's no real cost to them when it comes to violating and/or ignoring other people's IP.
Samsung's position is entirely rational, but less than ethical.
Re:Samsung: so sue us (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, since when did ethics have anything to do with IP law?
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It doesn't. But it matters in the court of public opinion, which is why this is news.
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It doesn't. But it matters in the court of public opinion, which is why this is news.
Most of the people I see with Samsung phones can't spell lawyer, so I don't think it's going to matter.
Re:Samsung: so sue us (Score:5, Insightful)
Samsung's position is entirely rational, but less than ethical.
How can you comment on the ethics of what Samsung is doing without actually having read the contract in full? For all we know the contract had a no competition clause which Microsoft may have violated by buying Nokia.
That's the life of contracts. I'm involved in the shutdown of a major industrial plant in my city. The way these things happen is that you look at the costs of running, and you look at the costs of the alternatives. The alternative costs include things such as legal wrangling over details of contracts you're trying to get out of.
It would be unethical to NOT try and get out of a contract which is costing you money for no good reason. This is just standard business practice and it's no different to arguing with your ISP who wants to charge you a full month even if your connection was unavailable for a week (been involved in this one as well and ended up getting a full month free).
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Your aren't talking about ethics or morals, you're talking contract law. And we don't know what the contract amounts to. We do, however, know that MS was treatening to sue people right and left over secret patents, so it's quite reasonable that Samsung may have felt that they were coerced into signing the agreement. If so, then it's quite ethical to look for any escape hole.
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Samsung's position is entirely rational, but less than ethical.
You don't know that, because you don't know the full story.
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Samsung's position is entirely rational, but less than ethical.
more than ethical, for different reasons.
Since Microsoft purchase Nokia, they must enter into a cross license agreement or pay royalties to Samsung. Now M$ may pull an Apple and claim they shouldn't have to pay for standard essential cell phone patents.. But that argument becomes a double edged sword, since M$ patent licenses cover the standardized memory card file format(oopsey - standard essential ) . So what's good for the goose is good for gander so to speak..
Samsung clearly and right fully, thinks
Re: Samsung: so sue us (Score:4, Informative)
"Standard essential" is not Just some arbitrary term that judges slap on a patent. The patent holder decides to agree to license their patent under FRAND in exchange for being a part of the standard. MS never tried to become part of a standard or did they agree to license the particular patent under FRAND.
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Some are FRAND and some are not.. A number of M$ patents have expired [dailytech.com], ergo Samsung's position is much stronger now. Additionally, M$ transferred a large number of patents [tomsguide.com] to a 3rd party, so they don't have nearly as much to offer in a cross license agreement.
Re: Samsung: so sue us (Score:2)
It doesn't matter whether some MS patents have expired. According to the summary "Samsung voluntarily entered into a legally binding contract with Microsoft in a cross-licensing agreement".
Do you really think that Samsung's lawyers were incompetent enough to sign a contract that extended beyond the patent terms?
Change of circumstances/ (Score:4, Interesting)
A number of factors could have changed since 2011, apart from the possibility of patents expiring.
Samsung could have had a cross licensing agreement with Nokia, meaning Microsoft was getting paid twice. Also the US IP law has become more hostile to abstract patents, which probably form the bulk of Microsofts patent portfolio. Ironically Microsoft has probably picked up a bunch of Nokia patents, which may be much more useful in a patent slinging fight.
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AFAIK microsoft did not get any nokia patents with the buyout. As such nokia has left the market and samsung can no longer cross license with nokia, instead have to pay them and have to rethink their spending on frivolous microsoft patents.
In my opinion, keeping patents secret while saying someone is infridging one should be sued for libel or similar. If a company wants royalties from patents, they should say how much and from which patents. For a long time companies just say "they are infridging" and do no
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A quick Google reveals Microsoft got 8,500 design patents and a license to 30,000 (!) utility patents
Dark matter dispute (Score:2)
Not much can be known about it at this time.
That means we'll all have to go by our hunches and reflexes, and totally tear apart Microsoft.
Timewarp to 2003 (Score:2, Interesting)
The execs at M$ are shitting their pants over the anticipation of their failed Vista 9...
Hold on there tiger. I admire your spunk, and if this was the heady days of the Desktop, your post makes sense....except this is the failure of Heavyweight OS Vista, Windows/Office/IE Monopoly+Lock-in ,anti GPL source, profit hungry CEO in the New Personal Computing which includes mobile. The old model model was so effective at crushing everyone, was so trivial to outmanoeuvre by Google who are more nimbler/cheaper/OS friendly/ and cant be bullied or bribed, and is a better partner than someone who is your
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People all over are arguing the *new* boss is different.
When the new boss quickly laid off a huge percentage of the workforce and used the term "synergies" three times in the e-mail that informed them of those layoffs, it pretty much told me all I needed to know.
Re: Timewarp to 2003 (Score:1)
I admire your spunk
Get a room!
M$ Astroturfers come in all forms (Score:1)
M$ is shitting their pants, even when Sweaty B stepped down at M$. M$ is still obviously using multiple accounts [slashdot.org] to troll $lashdot which is nothing more than a shill piece for M$. While your mouth is sucking Sweaty B's cock your illegal monopoly is being threatened. M$ is still actively trying to protect their illegal monopoly through restricted boot as well as lawsuits. Given half the chance they will succeed in blockading any and all competitors just as they had before. Remember you adage, Embrace, E
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Summary silly -- Contracts are always voluntary (Score:4, Informative)
"Samsung voluntarily entered into a legally binding contract..."
As opposed to what, being forced to sign under threat of listening to executive Karaoke?
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~~
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No, that is a legally binding contract where a valid defense renders the defendant able to partially or completely ignore the agreement. The FORMATION is what creates the valid presumption of binding.
From your article on NOLO:
" But it's possible for an otherwise valid contract to be found unenforceable in the eyes of the law"
In other words, it is possible for a legally binding contract formed in a perfectly correct way, to be unenforceable due to defenses to the performance of the contract. For example, d
boycott MS products (Score:2)