Google has asked the US International Trade Commission (ITC) to drop pending charges against Microsoft.
The search engine firm had said earlier that Microsoft had infringed two of the patents owned by its Motorola Mobility unit.
The move puts to rest a part of the patent battle between the two firms, which began in November 2010 after Motorola filed a lawsuit against Microsoft over infringing on wireless and video coding patents deployed in Xbox and its smartphones.
Microsoft hit back by saying that Motorola had been illegally seeking excessive royalty payments for the H.264 video patents, which are mandated to be offered on a fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory basis.
As part of the agreement with FTC to conclude its probe into Google’s potential breaches of antitrust law, the firm reached an agreement on how it would handle disputes over ‘standard essential patents’, or patents that involve broad areas of technology.
Microsoft welcomed Google’s move with the FTC Microsoft deputy general counsel said in a statement: "We’re pleased that Google has finally withdrawn these claims for exclusion orders against Microsoft, and hope that it will now withdraw similar claims pending in other jurisdictions as required by the FTC Consent Order."
Content from our partners
