Google and Samsung Strike Global Patent-Licensing Deal

What's This?

Image: Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images

By Adario Strange2014-01-26 22:52:05 UTC

Furthering strengthening an already close working relationship, Samsung and Google announced a new global patent-licensing agreement on Sunday.

“We’re pleased to enter into a cross-license with our partner Samsung,” Allen Lo, deputy general counsel for patents at Google, said in a statement. “By working together on agreements like this, companies can reduce the potential for litigation and focus instead on innovation.”

See also: Top 15 Recipients of U.S. Patents in 2013

The new agreement not only covers current patents, but also applies to those filed over the next 10 years. Such a wide-ranging and longterm deal eases the way for both companies to better integrate the other’s patents into a diverse array of products, as well as send a competitive signal to the likes of Apple.

“Samsung and Google are showing the rest of the industry that there is more to gain from cooperating than engaging in unnecessary patent disputes,” Seungho Ahn, head of Samsung’s Intellectual Property Center, said in a statement.

Despite such comments, the patent wars between Samsung and Apple continue to color the mobile-device landscape, with Samsung coming out on the losing end in recent months.

Samsung suffered a significant patent-related defeat in December when a judge in South Korea rejected the company's claims that Apple had infringed on its smartphone patents.

Prior to that legal decision, Apple was awarded $290 million in damages after a U.S. court ruled that Samsung had infringed on several of Apple's patents.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

Topics: apple, Apps and Software, Mobile, patents, samsung, Tech