Foxconn denies Microsoft's accusations about royalty agreement

After being hit with a lawsuit from Microsoft last week because of non-payment of patent royalties, Foxconn parent company is hitting back. According to Foxconn chairman Terry Gou, his company “has never paid any patent fees to Microsoft”, and thinks that the lawsuit is not an issue for his company, who will suffer almost no loss from the lawsuit.

“Microsoft is falling behind in the smartphone era faced with the rise of Android so now it is adopting such a bad strategy,” Gou said at an impromptu news conference in Taipei. “I really sympathize with them.”

According to Gou, Microsoft is going after the ODM only because it is “too scared to sue Google for Android royalties, so instead, it is going after suppliers”. Gou believes that as a contract manufacturer, Foxconn would never be in a position to pay Microsoft for any patent licenses.

Microsoft initially went after Foxconn on March 8, 2019, stating that the manufacturer had violated a 2013 contract between the two by failing to pay royalties to Microsoft for using its patented technology. In the lawsuit, Redmond is requesting that Hon Hai submits royalty reports, complies with an audit, and hand over owed royalty payment.

Source: Reuters