InterDigital and Samsung bury hatchet

First payment due next year

Posted in Mobile, 25th November 2008 14:22 GMT

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Samsung and InterDigital have settled their patent spat, with the former agreeing to pay the latter an undisclosed sum for both 2G and 3G products until the year 2012.

There has been a trend, recently, for those involved in the mobile phone business to start settling their disputes by giving money to each other rather then pouring it into the bottomless pit of litigation. Samsung is the latest to succumb to the lure of easy resolution by paying off InterDigital for use of its patents covering CDMA and cdma2000. In exchange, InterDigital will quietly forgot about Samsung's use of 2G technologies.

The deal between the two companies involves Samsung paying off InterDigital, though the South Korean manufacturer is still deciding how to make the payments. The company has 45 days to work out the details, with the first instalment due early next year.

In July InterDigital tried to get an import ban against Samsung for patent infringements. The company still holds many mobile technology patents, at least one of which has been ruled essential for anyone building a 3G handset.

For Samsung this is just one more sign that it's a proper mobe manufacturer - it has a range of handsets, strange quirks of design (8MP cameras... why?), their own developer community and has now settled a major patent dispute with InterDigital. ®

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