Samsung seeks arbitration to settle Microsoft complaint

South Korean company Samsung has asked for an arbitration hearing in Hong Kong in an attempt to resolve a dispute with Microsoft over patent royalties.

The request was filed yesterday (October 7) in the Hong Kong office of the International Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce.

It emerged after Samsung’s attorneys notified the US court where Microsoft sued Samsung earlier this year.

Microsoft took action in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in August. It said Samsung owes nearly $7 million in interest from the delayed payment of royalties agreed under a 2011 cross-licensing deal.

As part of the deal, Samsung said it would pay Microsoft for any phones or tablets running the Android mobile platform, to which Microsoft-owned patents are directed.

But after Microsoft bought Nokia’s mobile handset division earlier this year, Samsung allegedly stopped honouring the agreement.

Microsoft said Samsung claimed that the Nokia acquisition breached their agreement in “various” ways, and that the South Korean company’s decision not to honour the contract any longer was “extraordinary”.

Now, according to news website  GeekWire, Microsoft has said it does not agree with the arbitration request in Hong Kong.

“Microsoft and Samsung agreed in the contract that the appropriate venue to interpret the business collaboration agreement is New York. We still believe that to be true,” a spokesman reportedly told the newswire.

The latest development comes despite the companies reportedly agreeing to “peace talks” last month and a discussion on how they could work together in future, following Microsoft’s lawsuit.

In The Korea Times, a Samsung official was quoted as saying that it had offered an “olive branch” to Microsoft.