News

Truce in smartphone patent war

Something is happening in the world of smartphone patents. We mean something different than usual. It seems that the technology giants are beginning to bury the hatchet that has been flying around all over the place between them in recent years.

Or at least this is the impression given by the agreement made between Apple and the Motorola Mobility division of Google in May to dismiss the chain of intellectual property lawsuits that they have brought over smartphones, including infringements of 3G connectivity patents held by Google and Apple’s iPhone patents.

And more recently, Samsung has just completed a 500-million-dollar deal with mobile wireless communications giant InterDigital, the owner of some 20,000 patents and patent applications in this area, which took Samsung to court in 2013 for patent infringements in the USA.

The royalty-based licence agreement recently signed supposedly allows Samsung to freely market 3G and 4G mobile devices that use technology patented by Interdigital.

Nevertheless, this news is no guarantee that the big shots in this sector are going to smoke the pipe of peace. First of all, many parties are involved and there are only a handful of agreements so far.

What is more, the agreement between Google and Apple does not include a cross licence agreement by which the two companies can freely use their competitor’s patents, so nothing is to say these two technology giants won’t come face to face again soon in court.

We know that the calm always comes after the storm. But is the storm really over?

Ricardo Ontañon