General Gaming Article

Microsoft Sues Samsung Over Android Patent Royalties

Posted: 03 Aug 2014 08:43 PM PDT

Each year, Microsoft earns billions in patent royalties from Android device vendors

Microsoft is suing Samsung for breach of contract over the non-payment of Android patent royalties. The matter pertains to a 2011 patent licensing agreement requiring the South Korean electronics heavyweight to make annual patent royalty payments to Microsoft in exchange for the right to use the latter's patented technology in its Android-based smart devices.

According to a complaint filed by Microsoft in the Southern District of New York on Friday, Samsung initially refused to make the "fiscal year 2 royalty payment" that it was scheduled to make last fall, and when it did relent, it refused to pay the interest on its late payment. Now, Microsoft claims, the South Korean company "is threatening to breach the license agreement again with respect to its ongoing royalty payment obligations." Apparently, Samsung views Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's handset business as constituting a breach of the 2011 agreement, and therefore an adequate ground for non-payment.

"We don't take lightly filing a legal action, especially against a company with which we've enjoyed a long and productive partnership. Unfortunately, even partners sometimes disagree. After spending months trying to resolve our disagreement, Samsung has made clear in a series of letters and discussions that we have a fundamental disagreement as to the meaning of our contract," David Howard, Microsoft's deputy general counsel and corporate VP, wrote in a post on the Microsoft on the Issues blog Friday.

"Since Samsung entered into the agreement, its smartphone sales have quadrupled and it is now the leading worldwide player in the smartphone market. Consider this: when Samsung entered into the agreement in 2011, it shipped 82 million Android smartphones. Just three years later, it shipped 314 million Android smartphones," he added. "After becoming the leading player in the worldwide smartphone market, Samsung decided late last year to stop complying with its agreement with Microsoft."

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Surface Pro 3 Variants with Core i3 and i7 CPUs Now Available in U.S., Canada

Posted: 03 Aug 2014 05:06 PM PDT

Several other countries to receive the new options by month's end

Microsoft officially unveiled the third iteration of its Surface series of actively cooled Windows tablets at a special event in New York on May 20, 2014. Of the five Surface Pro 3 models announced back then, two began shipping a month later, with the company scheduling the release of the other variants in August. Well, August is here, as are the remaining three variants of the 12-inch slate.

First up is the Core i3 version (1.50 GHz Core i3-4020Y to be precise) with 64GB storage. At $799, it is cheaper than both the 128GB and 256GB Core i5-4300U based Surface Pro 3 models that have been available since June. Then we have a couple of models built around the 3.30GHz Intel Core i7-4650U processor. The 256GB option is priced at $1,549 and the 512GB at $1,949.00.

According to Microsoft, these new options will be available in "Australia, Austria, Belgium, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand and the United Kingdom" by the end of August.

Hopefully by then, Microsoft will have succeeded in addressing the various issues that some existing Surface Pro 3 owners have complained about over the past couple of months. So far, the company has issued as many as three firmware updates in a bid to fix these problems, which include excessive heating and poor Wi-Fi speeds, but to no avail.

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