Document sheds light on Samsung's payments to Microsoft over Android

Newly unsealed legal file indicates Samsung paid Microsoft $1B in 2013 alone to license patents Android allegedly infringed.

An Android fan at Google I/O earlier this year. Microsoft apparently makes a nice chunk of change from Samsung on royalty payments involving patents Android allegedly violated. Stephen Lam/Getty Images

So we knew Microsoft's Android-patent-licensing business was big. But it's even bigger than many had estimated.

Thanks to a filing unsealed on October 3 in the Microsoft v. Samsung U.S. District Court patent-royalty case filed in early August 2014, we now know that Samsung paid Microsoft $1 billion in 2013 for a single year's worth of patent-licensing royalties.

Samsung agreed in 2011 to pay Microsoft a then-undisclosed amount for licensing patents upon which Android allegedly infringed. That agreement was structured as a cross-licensing and business-collaboration agreement.

According to the unsealed filing, Microsoft is contending that "under the License Agreement, Samsung agreed to make patent royalty payment to Microsoft for a period of seven fiscal years, in exchange for the right to use patented Microsoft technology in Samsung smartphones and tablets that use the Android operating system."

The filing says Samsung failed to make its year-two royalty payment on time and to pay interest for not doing so. Samsung, for its part, claimed it shouldn't have to make good on the contract because Microsoft bought Nokia's devices and services business.

Microsoft said Samsung owed interest in excess of $6.9 million for its late Android-patent fee, which it still hadn't paid as of the date of the filing. That amount is calculated on the $1 billion Samsung owed Microsoft in Android patent-licensing royalties as of August 29, 2013, according to the unsealed documents.

On September 3, 2013, Microsoft publicly announced its plans to acquire Nokia's devices and services business. A Microsoft spokesperson said Samsung is claiming the Nokia acquisition would breach the business collaboration part of the patent license agreement. But according to the unsealed court documents, Samsung did pay Microsoft its agreed-on $1 billion second-year patent royalty amount on November 29, 2013, but still hasn't paid the third-year amount that was invoiced in June 2014 but still isn't yet due.

Samsung is claiming it shouldn't have to pay Microsoft the agreed-on patent-licensing fees for anything beyond the post-Nokia acquisition period -- even though it did pay the second-year amount late. Samsung claims the deal it signed with Microsoft should be redone so the amount it owes is reduced or eliminated because the patents covered were granted almost entirely by countries other than Korea and used in products sold to consumers in countries other than Korea.

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Document sheds light on Samsung's payments to Microsoft over Android