Setting aside differences for the betterment of their business moving forward, Qualcomm is taking a lax approach on its patents by expanding its cross-license agreement with Samsung while the smartphone maker will withdraw its intervention on the chipmakers appeal on an on-going legal case with the Korean Federal Trade Commission.

“Qualcomm has enjoyed a strong partnership with Samsung for many years, and we are pleased to further strengthen and extend our relationship through this amended cross-license agreement, alongside our continuing relationship as a key product supplier to Samsung,” said Steve Mollenkopf, Chief Executive Officer, Qualcomm Incorporated.

As early as November, Qualcomm was facing a US$900 million penalty from KFTC for breaching anti-monopoly law in the country after the courts found the company guilty of preventing rival modem chipset manufacturers from getting any leeway in the market. Qualcomm and its subsidiaries have since re-appeal. Samsung was one of the companies supporting the allegation along with a handful of others.

The amicable resolution also leads to both working on multi-year strategic relationship agreement between the two companies in various technology areas including the next phase of mobile connectivity with 5G. Samsung has been at lost with the new technology having yet to make any significant announcement losing out to rivals like Huawei having already testing gigabyte speeds in various cities across the region.

“We value our strategic relationship with Qualcomm Technologies,” said TM Roh, executive vice president and the head of mobile R&D, Samsung Electronics. “And look forward to working together to deliver leading technologies in the years ahead.”