Samsung Electronics Co has signed an agreement with Google Inc to cross-license their patents, reducing the risk of costly legal disputes over intellectual property and likely fostering greater collaboration between the two technology giants.
Seoul-based Samsung said yesterday that the deal covers patents to be filed over the next 10 years, as well as existing patents. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Allen Lo, a deputy general counsel at Google, said in a statement that the deal allows the two to reduce the potential for litigation and to focus on innovation.
Samsung said it also paves the way for deeper collaboration on research and development for Samsung and Google. The two already collaborate on smartphones and televisions.
The announcement means there will be a higher possibility for Samsung to participate in Google’s key projects as a hardware partner, said Chung Chang-won, an analyst at Nomura Financial Investment Co.
Chung picked wearable PCs, which connect everyday objects such as glasses to wireless networks, and Google’s self-driving cars as the products that Samsung could join forces on with Google.
Samsung is the world’s largest maker of popular consumer electronics such as smartphones and televisions, and key tech components such as memory chips for mobile phones and PCs.
Google, the world’s largest search company and maker of the most used mobile operating system, Android, has been moving to acquire hardware manufacturers, such as Motorola Mobility and Nest Labs.
Tech companies often use litigation to stop rivals from using patents without permission, but many of the disputes end in cross-licensing agreements outside court.
Samsung, the maker of Android-powered Galaxy devices, is in legal fights with Apple. CEOs of Samsung and Apple are scheduled to meet next month to try to settle per a US court’s request.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by