Microsoft Corp said, in a patent lawsuit against Samsung Electronics Co, that the South Korean smartphone maker paid it as much as US$1 billion in royalties last year under a now-disputed 2011 licensing agreement.
The payment was disclosed for the first time in a court filing in Microsoft’s complaint alleging Samsung breached an agreement to share patents.
The seven-year accord requires Samsung to pay Microsoft royalties for phones and tablets that use the software maker’s patented technology, according to the filing made on Friday in Manhattan federal court.
Samsung has refused to pay US$6.9 million in interest owed under the agreement, the filing read.
“Samsung has suggested that Microsoft has breached the business collaboration agreement,” Microsoft’s deputy general counsel David Howard said on Friday in a blog post.
“We disagree and that’s why we asked the court to rule that Microsoft is not in breach,” he said.
The US giant claims Samsung is using Microsoft’s acquisition of Nokia Oyj’s phone business as an excuse to stop complying with the contract. The license agreement contains explicit provisions that grant a patent license to both companies’ subsidiaries, including Nokia, Microsoft said in the complaint.
The acquisition does not breach a provision of the agreement that the two companies collaborate, the company said in the filing.
Most Samsung mobile devices run Google Inc’s Android operating system.
Microsoft pays Samsung an annual, pre-set royalty to use Samsung’s patents, which is credited against royalties the South Korean firm owes Microsoft each year, according to the filing.
Microsoft is seeking payment of the US$6.9 million and a declaration by the court that its addition of the Nokia phone business does not affect the 2011 agreement with Samsung.
Separately, Romanian President Traian Basescu on Friday authorized public prosecutors to launch an inquiry into five former ministers suspected of receiving millions of dollars of bribes and kickbacks from resellers of Microsoft software.
“I’ve examined key documents from the public prosecutor’s office and believe an investigation should be launched soon and carried out thoroughly,” Basescu told a press conference in Bucharest.
A total of nine former ministers are accused of money laundering, abuse of power and bribery.
Parliament is due to vote to remove the immunity for three others, while one other former minister is a sitting member of the European Parliament.
The inquiry centers on state contracts to lease software from Microsoft that the Romanian government agreed with distributor Fujitsu Siemens Computers in 2004.
Witnesses quoted in a report sent to parliament by the prosecutors’ office describe how tens of millions of US dollars of commissions were paid to members of successive governments and businessmen between 2001 and 2012.
According to the prosecutors, “of the US$54 million paid by the government [for the contracts], US$20 million were commissions claimed by those involved, both within ministries and private companies.”
Additional reporting by AFP
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all. Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives. That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls. One retailer, who asked not to be named, because
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
STILL LOADED: Last year’s richest person, Quanta Computer Inc chairman Barry Lam, dropped to second place despite an 8 percent increase in his wealth to US$12.6 billion Staff writer, with CNA Daniel Tsai (蔡明忠) and Richard Tsai (蔡明興), the brothers who run Fubon Group (富邦集團), topped the Forbes list of Taiwan’s 50 richest people this year, released on Wednesday in New York. The magazine said that a stronger New Taiwan dollar pushed the combined wealth of Taiwan’s 50 richest people up 13 percent, from US$174 billion to US$197 billion, with 36 of the people on the list seeing their wealth increase. That came as Taiwan’s economy grew 4.6 percent last year, its fastest pace in three years, driven by the strong performance of the semiconductor industry, the magazine said. The Tsai