Microsoft and Google end law dispute, to work together

The five-years patent lawsuit battle between Microsoft and Google had finally come to an end after both companies agreed to drop the lawsuit for an undisclosed amount. The announcement was made by in a joint statement from the two companies.

The lawsuit which involve Google using Microsoft patented technology in the production of the Motorola Mobility smartphones which Microsoft said, the company under Google fails to pay Microsoft the agreed amount to them. Google, on the other hand, accused Microsoft of using Motorola's technology for video compression and wireless technology for their Xbox system.

Google obtained lots of patent for smartphone and wireless technology after the company bought Motorola. Motorola was bought by Google in 2011 for $12.5 billion and they sell the company to Lenovo 3 years later for $2.91 billion to Lenovo. However, Google still owns the right to most of Motorola's intellectual property after it was sold. Besides that, Microsoft also sued Google over a patent on how a long text message will be sent via phone according to BBC.

The lawsuit was filed back in 2010 involves around 20 lawsuits regarding the cases in the US and Germany according to The Verge. Besides games consoles and smartphones, there is also lawsuit regarding WiFi and other windows product.

Reuters reported that a Microsoft spokeswoman said that, both companies also agreed to work together to fight and implement a better way to improve intellectual property right. Google and Microsoft will still produce a competing product however both companies agreed that any future copyright infringement will still lead to a lawsuit.

A joint statement was released by Google and Microsoft stating that "As part of the agreement, the companies will dismiss all pending patent infringement litigation between them including cases related to Motorola Mobility."

Besides working to improve intellectual property, both companies also announced early September that they are working together under a group call the Alliance for Open Media. The group includes seven other tech companies such as Netflix and Amazon are working together to develop a royalty-free future standard for encoding and decoding video stream. The project will change how users are charged for the content they are viewing on media.

This is not the first copyright infringement lawsuit ever filed by tech companies, previously Apple had accused Samsung of using its technology for their smartphone. However, both companies agreed to drop the lawsuit on last Wednesday. The agreement achieved by both companies are still confidential.