Google and MSFT Come to Agreement

Peace has broken out between Google and Microsoft, which agreed to dismiss all of their pending patent lawsuits against each other.

The agreement, the terms of which were not disclosed, mean that about 20 different lawsuits in Germany and the United States involving issues as varied as mobile phones, wireless networking, video decoding and other technologies will go away. In a joint statement, the companies said the cases included those related to Motorola Mobility, the smartphone maker that Google sold last year to Lenovo.

The companies also said they agreed to “collaborate on certain patent matters and anticipate working together in other areas in the future to benefit our customers.”

Although Microsoft has struggled to compete in the marketplace against smartphones based on Google’s Android operating system, it has struck patent licensing agreements with many of the biggest makers of Android smartphones, including Samsung. (Microsoft settled a lawsuit this year involving a contract with Samsung over patent royalty payments. Analysts estimate that it earns billions of dollars a year in such royalty payments.