Microsoft sued the Samsung the South Korean smart phone maker

Now it’s turn for Microsoft for suing others, on Friday Microsoft sued the Samsung the South Korean smart phone maker. In the lawsuit filed in a Manhattan federal court Microsoft said that Samsung has refused to make the royalty payment last fall on patient licenses. Samsung had refused the payment after Microsoft made the announcement that it will be acquiring Nokia’s handset business.

It is known fact that Microsoft has always been trying to compete with the Google’s Inc android operating system based mobiles phones with its new products. Keeping in tune with this Microsoft had declared that it will raise the cost for all android device makers, not only that it had convinced the other manufactures also to pay Microsoft patent royalties. All the top Android handsets producers such as Samsung, LG and HTC had accepted it and made the agreements for it. Though it might be worth mentioning that Motorola did not agree to it, and the company has been in litigation against Microsoft since 2010.

Though in the lawsuit Microsoft had asked for monetary recovery from Samsung but the amount for dispute was not publicly disclosed. In reply Samsung Corporation stated that it will review the complaint in detail first then issue a response for the same. David Howard, Microsoft deputy general counsel stated that Microsoft values and respects the partnership with Samsung, even if unfortunately the partners might agree. He also stated that Samsung and Microsoft views about how to interpret the licensing agreement is highly different.

It should be noted that Samsung did pay the royalty during the first fiscal year, after the agreement was signed in 2011. It refused to make the payments after Nokia deal last year. Samsung’ argument for nonpayment was that the Nokia deal has breached the licensing agreement Microsoft. The lawsuit even mentioned that Samsung eventually did pay Microsoft but it has refused to pay the interest of late payment. The other point put forward by Samsung was that the smart phones products sold by Microsoft after the Nokia deal was not even covered by the licensing deal, though Microsoft has asked the judge to make an opposite finding. Now it remains to be seen, who wins the mega battle? Only time will say.