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Selected Experience

Samsung Electronics: Global Technology and IP Agreements

How John S. Kim negotiated hundreds of patent, technology licensing, software and commercial agreements at Samsung Electronics, including worldwide licenses with Google, Nuance and AT&T and an LTE network-equipment supply agreement with Reliance Industries in India.

Senior Legal Counsel, Samsung Electronics
Selected-experience card on a deep blue ground titled “Samsung Electronics: Global Technology & IP Agreements,” showing a lit office tower bearing the Samsung name with figures shaking hands, a boardroom table holding a smartphone, tablet and signed agreement, beside three paragraphs on the agreements negotiated. The Law Office of John S. Kim wordmark and the line “International Business & Commercial Counsel” appear in the lower left.
Hundreds of patent, technology licensing, software and commercial agreements worldwide, including licensing with Google, Nuance and AT&T and an LTE network-equipment agreement with Reliance Industries in India. PNG master · 2896 × 2172 · select the image to open it at full resolution

The matter

At Samsung Electronics, John S. Kim negotiated hundreds of patent, technology licensing, software, strategic collaboration and commercial agreements with multinational corporations, universities and industry organizations worldwide.

Three distinct strands

Within that volume, three kinds of work should not be collapsed into one. He led major worldwide licensing agreements with Google, Nuance and AT&T, covering mobile operating systems, applications and speech-recognition technologies. He negotiated collaborative arrangements with academic and standards-body counterparties. And he negotiated a multi-year agreement for Samsung Electronics to supply LTE telecommunications network equipment, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to Reliance Industries in India — an outbound sale of hardware, not a license.

Why it was demanding

Licensing, collaboration and equipment supply are governed by different instincts. A license allocates rights in something intangible; a collaboration allocates work and the ownership of what it produces; an equipment supply agreement allocates delivery, performance and acceptance risk. Running all three across one global business means never letting the reflexes of one contaminate another.

Relevance today

The Law Office of John S. Kim advises on technology licensing and intellectual property transactions and on the commercial contracts that sit alongside them — including the point at which a license, a collaboration and a supply arrangement have to be told apart.

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