Microsoft Corp and Google Inc have agreed to bury all patent
infringement litigation against each other, the companies announced on
Wednesday, settling 18 cases in the United States and Germany.
In another sign of the winding down of the global
smartphone wars, the companies said the deal puts an end to court fights
involving a variety of technologies, including mobile phones, wifi, and patents
used in Microsoft's Xbox game consoles and other Windows products.
The agreement also drops all litigation involving Motorola Mobility,
which Google sold to Lenovo Group Ltd last year while keeping its patents.
However, as Microsoft and Google continue to make
products that compete directly with each other, including search engines and
mobile computing devices, the agreement notably does not preclude any future
infringement lawsuits, a Microsoft spokeswoman confirmed.
"Google and Microsoft have agreed to
collaborate on certain patent matters and anticipate working together in other
areas in the future to benefit our customers," the companies said in a
joint statement. They did not disclose the financial terms of the deal.
The companies said they have been
cooperating on such issues as the development of a unified patent court for the
European Union, and on royalty-free technology for speeding up video on the
Internet.
One of the most bitter disputes between the
rivals began in 2010 when Microsoft accused Motorola, later acquired by
Mountain View, California-based Google, of breaching its obligation to offer
licenses to its wireless and video patents used in Xbox systems at a reasonable
cost.
In July, a U.S. appeals court ruled that
the low licensing rate Microsoft pays to use the patents had been properly set
by a federal judge in Seattle.
Wednesday's agreement is not the first
among smartphone heavyweights to settle their patent disputes. In 2014, Samsung
Electronics Co Ltd and Apple Inc agreed to drop all litigation against one
another outside the United States.
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