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- Nov 12, 2018
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Microsoft settled suit with Google a few years ago. Now aiming at Foxconn.
NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan -- Foxconn founder Terry Gou launched a blistering attack on Microsoft on Tuesday, accusing the U.S. technology group of scapegoating his company in a dispute over royalty payments on the Android software used by its Chinese clients.
Gou, speaking at a hastily convened news conference at the company’s headquarters in New Taipei City, said he intended to fight the claims.
Microsoft filed the suit on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing Foxconn, formally trading as Hon Hai Precision Industry, of failing to abide by a 2013 patent license agreement to pay royalties, and to let Deloitte to conduct an audit every two years. It did not specify the details of the agreement and patents involved in the Microsoft court document that the Nikkei obtained.
Foxconn’s manufacturing arm, the Hong Kong-listed FIH Mobile, is responsible for all Android smartphone production. Its clients include China’s Huawei, Xiaomi, Vivo and Nokia. The parent company Foxconn assembles Apple’s iconic iPhone.
When asked if his company had ever paid royalties to Microsoft following the agreement in 2013, Gou dodged the question: "Foxconn has never paid [royalties] to Microsoft. As for FIH, I cannot let it answer the question now, because it is going to speak in the court later as evidence." Gou said the patent issues between Microsoft and FIH’s clients dated back to 2011, when Microsoft went after Google’s Android partners such as Motorola for alleged patent infringements.
FIH Acting Chairman Chih Yu-yang said in the past eight years FIH had received multiple formal notices from its Android smartphone-making customers, asking FIH not to negotiate patent issues, share its shipment data with Microsoft or pay the royalties on behalf of the clients.
"It is stated in our contracts with the clients that the responsibility of all the intellectual property rights and assertions fall on our clients, not on FIH," Chih said. "So either FIH or Foxconn will not suffer any loss because of Microsoft’s lawsuit."
https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trade-war/Foxconn-hits-out-at-Microsoft-over-royalties-law-suit
NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan -- Foxconn founder Terry Gou launched a blistering attack on Microsoft on Tuesday, accusing the U.S. technology group of scapegoating his company in a dispute over royalty payments on the Android software used by its Chinese clients.
Gou, speaking at a hastily convened news conference at the company’s headquarters in New Taipei City, said he intended to fight the claims.
Microsoft filed the suit on Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing Foxconn, formally trading as Hon Hai Precision Industry, of failing to abide by a 2013 patent license agreement to pay royalties, and to let Deloitte to conduct an audit every two years. It did not specify the details of the agreement and patents involved in the Microsoft court document that the Nikkei obtained.
Foxconn’s manufacturing arm, the Hong Kong-listed FIH Mobile, is responsible for all Android smartphone production. Its clients include China’s Huawei, Xiaomi, Vivo and Nokia. The parent company Foxconn assembles Apple’s iconic iPhone.
When asked if his company had ever paid royalties to Microsoft following the agreement in 2013, Gou dodged the question: "Foxconn has never paid [royalties] to Microsoft. As for FIH, I cannot let it answer the question now, because it is going to speak in the court later as evidence." Gou said the patent issues between Microsoft and FIH’s clients dated back to 2011, when Microsoft went after Google’s Android partners such as Motorola for alleged patent infringements.
FIH Acting Chairman Chih Yu-yang said in the past eight years FIH had received multiple formal notices from its Android smartphone-making customers, asking FIH not to negotiate patent issues, share its shipment data with Microsoft or pay the royalties on behalf of the clients.
"It is stated in our contracts with the clients that the responsibility of all the intellectual property rights and assertions fall on our clients, not on FIH," Chih said. "So either FIH or Foxconn will not suffer any loss because of Microsoft’s lawsuit."
https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Trade-war/Foxconn-hits-out-at-Microsoft-over-royalties-law-suit
