Google And Samsung Makes A New Cross Deal

Samsung and Google have signed an agreement to license a range of each other’s patents.

 “By working together on agreements like this, companies can reduce the potential for litigation and focus instead on innovation,” Allen Lo, deputy general counsel for patents at Google, said in a news release.

The deal does not cover every patent that each company holds. Google and Samsung said the agreement covered existing patents that would be filed during the next 10 years.

The companies did not disclose terms of the arrangement. While the deal strengthens ties between Google and Samsung on certain technologies, they will not be able to use the patents that are covered to strengthen their case in existing litigation with other parties, because the agreement is confidential. Google, which developed Android software, and Samsung, the leading maker of phones that use the operating system, have had a highly productive though largely unofficial partnership until now. Android had an 81 percent share of the global market for smartphone operating systems in the third quarter of 2013.

A patent owner called the Rockstar Consortium, which was formed by Apple, Microsoft and other companies, has sued Google, Samsung and other companies involved in Android.

 “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 news release.

The patent deal stops short of a 10-year agreement by Samsung to use Android, but also suggests that speculation about possible disagreements between the two companies might have been exaggerated, analysts said.