Microsoft, Motorola: FRAND first, then patent disputes

Microsoft and Google-owned Motorola Mobility agrees to set aside their ongoing patent disputes, until issues over fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory patent licenses have been resolved.

by Josh Taylor

July 11, 2012 5:53 AM PDT

Microsoft and Motorola Mobility, which is now owned by Google, have agreed to set aside several patent disputes until a U.S. court has ruled on their FRAND (fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory) license dispute, set to be heard in November.

The agreement was first picked up by Foss Patents blogger Florian Mueller. Microsoft alleged in the case that Motorola had not lived up to its FRAND obligation for patents essential to the video codec H.264 standard and the IEEE 802.11 Wi-Fi standard. Microsoft said that Motorola's offer for the license of those patents was "blatantly unreasonable."

The agreement will only affect three cases of alleged patent infringement between the two companies, set to be heard in Seattle, Wash., and is not expected to affect the dispute before the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Read more of "Microsoft, Google set aside patent disputes to resolve FRAND" at ZDNet.

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