8월 1일 금요일, 마이크로소프트가 미국 뉴욕 남부지방 연방 법원에 삼성전자가 안드로이드 운영 체제 관련된 특허 사용을 위반했다고 주장하며 소송을 제기했다.

Microsoft 의 주장에 의하면 2011년 삼성이 마이크로소프트에 삼성 안드로이드폰에 대한 로열티를 지급하기로 하였으나 이에 대한 이행이 늦어졌고 그에 따라 손해가 난 이자 부분에 대해서 지급하기를 거부했다고 밝핬다.

또한, 지난 9월 MS의 노키아 휴대폰 사업부 인수를 근거로, 법원의 계약 무효와 관련된 어떠한 판단도 없이, 로열티 지급을 중지하였다고 밝혔다. 

MS 는 또한 '삼성과 이 문제를 해결하기 위해 일정 기간동안 협상을 진행하였으나 제대로 이루어지지가 않았으며 서로의 계약에 대한 다른 입장을 분명히 했다' 고 밝혔다.

이하는 MS 의 부사장이자 법률 부문 임원 David Howard 가 블로그에 관련된 내용을 적은 전문이다.

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As you may have seen, on Friday Microsoft filed legal action against Samsung in U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York. Today’s legal action is simply to enforce our contract with Samsung.

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.

Samsung and Microsoft are both large and sophisticated companies. In 2011, after months of painstaking negotiation, Samsungvoluntarily entered into a legally binding contract with Microsoft to cross-license IP – an agreement which has been extremely beneficial for both parties. Samsung had been complying with the contract and paying to use Microsoft’s IP.

So what changed? 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. [Source: IDC, WW Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker – 2014 Q1, Published: May 2014] Samsung predicted it would be successful, but no one imagined their Android smartphone sales would increase this much.

After becoming the leading player in the worldwide smartphone market, Samsung decided late last year to stop complying with its agreement with Microsoft. In September 2013, after Microsoft announced it was acquiring the Nokia Devices and Services business, Samsung began using the acquisition as an excuse to breach its contract. Curiously, Samsung did not ask the court to decide whether the Nokia acquisition invalidated its contract with Microsoft, likely because it knew its position was meritless.

Microsoft and Samsung have a long history of collaboration. Microsoft values and respects our partnership with Samsung and expects it to continue. We are simply asking the Court to settle our disagreement, and we are confident the contract will be enforced.

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* 출처 (Reference) : 

마이크로소프트, 삼성 상대 안드로이드 로열티 소송(종합)

http://m.yna.co.kr/kr/contents/?cid=AKR20140802009251091&site=2400000000

Howard, D. (2014) Microsoft's Samsung action, Available at:http://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2014/08/01/microsofts-samsung-action/(Accessed: 2nd August, 2014).

[블로그 전문을 인용하였음으로 형식적 틀에 맞는 레퍼런스 첨부합니다.]