Headwater Research Leverages Testimony from Samsung Trial in Complaint Against Google

Upfront in Headwater Research LLC’s new Western District of Texas complaint against Alphabet (Google) (7:25-cv-00231), the plaintiff cites testimony from its recent trial against Samsung that the answer to the question “Q. Now, how many devices use [Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM)] today?” is “A. Billions of devices.” An Eastern District of Texas jury returned a $278.8M verdict for Headwater in that case, and Headwater now pleads that a “core aspect of the accused systems” in the suit against Google is FCM, which Headwater characterizes as “Google’s principal mechanism for binding the Android ecosystem as a whole—including Android device OEMs, carriers, app developers, and users—to Google’s advertising platform” and from which Headwater asserts that Google derives “immense value”, as underscored by its Revenue-Share Agreement (“RSA”) and Mobile Application Distribution Agreement (“MADA”) with Samsung. Headwater points to “public testimony in the Department of Justice’s 2025 antitrust case” that allegedly “revealed that Google paid Samsung about $8 billion between 2020 and 2023—roughly $2 billion per year—to ensure Samsung devices, including Galaxy phones and tablets, ship with Google Play Services (and, by extension, the embedded FCM client stack) pre-installed and set as the system-level default”.