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The number was disclosed during China's 2014 anti-trust investigation of the Nokia purchase. It was 310, and you can view the list here: http://images.mofcom.gov.cn/pe...

Microsoft talks about it here:
https://blogs.technet.microsof...

I don't know what *he's* implying, but I won't trust MS as long as they abusively sue, or threaten to sue, over patents that either they won't specify, that are obviously invalid, or both.

You can't threaten to sue over the unspecified. They start with licensing, then if licensing breaks down they sue. That again has nothing to do with open source and everything to do with taking in money from a purchased patent portfolio. By the way the patents in question are: http://images.mofcom.gov.cn/pe.... Refusing to specify them does not make them obviously invalid.

Just because defending against a patent lawsuit is too expensive to survive does not make the patent valid. It merely makes the litigant someone who should be harmed in any way feasible.

Yes poor Samsung, HTC, and Acer, they would never survive if they went to court on a patent lawsuit. /sarcasm. This point closes the loop nicely with your earlier claim, given that Microsoft rake in $billions from companies who can afford the litigation and who have crack legal teams of their own, I'm going to err on the side of the patents being very valid, and in the ownership of a practising entity that actually produces things.

On the scale of shit-in-the-patent-world this doesn't worry me one bit.

Microsoft's 310 Patent Claims on Android
Text Dump of an original Chinese Government Document Freely available here:
http://images.mofcom.gov.cn/pe...
Format of this list:
List Example Number Patent Number Patent Application Title

SEPs Generally Implemented by Smartphones
001 5634192 Mobile-Assisted Handoff Technique
002 5982324 Combining GPS With TOA/TD0A Of Cellular Signals To Locate Terminal
003 6058309 Network Directed System Selection for Cellular and Pcs Enhanced Roaming
004 6088578 Burst Request Method and Apparatus for Cdma High Speed Data
005 6091952 Distributed Subscriber Data Management in Wireless Networks from a Central Perspective
006 6223028 Enhanced Method And System For Programming A Mobile Telephone over the Air Within A Mobile Telephone Communication Network
007 6298461 Encoding and Decoding Methods and Apparatus
008 6324515 Method and Apparatus for Asymmetric Communication of Compressed Speech
009 6363251 Network Directed System Selection for Cellular and Pcs Enhanced Roaming
010 6411629 Data Interleaving Method
011 6430174 Communication System Supporting Simultaneous Voice and Multimedia Communications and Method of Operation Therefore
012 6438369 Network Directed System Selection for Cellular and Pcs Enhanced Roaming
013 6549771 Enhanced Method And System For Programming A Mobile Telephone over the Air Within A Mobile Telephone Communication Network
014 6628641 Header Error Detection For Wireless Data Cells
015 6738618 Method and System for Regulating Autonomous Messaging by Subscriber Units in a Wireless Communication Network
016 6880088 Secure Maintenance Messaging In a Digital Communications Network
017 6947483 Method, Apparatus, and System for Managing Data Compression in a Wireless Network
018 6947490 Cellular Radio Communications System
019 7042858 Soft Handoff for OFDM
020 7072336 Communications Using Adaptive Multi-Rate Codecs
021 7082114 System and Method for a Wireless Unit Acquiring a New Internet Protocol Address When Roaming Between Two Subnets
022 7145889 Efficient Frame Retransmission in a Wireless Communication Environment
023 7228133 Mobile IP Mobile Node Device and Access Information
024 7317680 Channel Mapping for OFDM
025 7436834 Efficient Frame Retransmission in a Wireless Communication Environment
026 7440433 Mobile IP Notification
027 7486735 Sub-Carrier Allocation For OFDM
028 7545766 Method for Mobile Node-foreign Agent Challenge Optimization
029 7646710 Mobility in a Multi-Access Communication Network
030 8046000 Providing Location-Based Information in Local Wireless Zones
031 8264996 Signalling Channel and Radio System for Power Saving in Wireless Devices
032 6298463 Parallel Concatenated Convolutional Coding
033 6782422 Systems and Methods for Resynchronization and Notification in Response to Network Media Events
034 7016705 Reducing Power Consumption in a Networked Battery-Operated Device Using Sensors
035 7089415 Authentication Methods and Systems for Accessing Networks, Authentication Methods and Systems for Accessing the Internet
036 7099689 Energy-Aware Communications for a Multi-Radio System
037 7110783 Power Efficient Channel Scheduling in a Wireles Network
038 7142855 Power Efficient Channel Scheduling in a Wireles Network
039 7187660 System and Method for Continuously Provisioning a Mobile Device
040 7203463 Power Efficient Channel Scheduling in a Wireles Network
041 7209740 Power Efficient Channel Scheduling in a Wireles Network
042 7230933 Reducing Idle Power Consumption in a Networked Battery Operated Device
043 7245936 Power Efficient Channel Scheduling in a Wireles Network
044 7284062 Increasing The Level of Automation When Provisioning A Computer System to Access A Network
045 7295522 System and Method for Continuously Provisioning a Mobile Device
046 7376122 System and Method for Link Quality Source Routing
047 7433936 C

Nobody knows for sure (except certain corporate lawyers) what these patents entail.

They do now. The Chinese Government released details of all 310 Microsoft patents used in Android licensing agreements last month. You can download the list here: http://images.mofcom.gov.cn/pe... (warning: docx)

That could be another reason why Samsung is now willing to contest the extortion. Very few of the patents are novel or non-obvious.

You also get insulated pins on the "small" version of the Europlug, though it's not such a big deal overall.

Being able to invert the plugs is great when you have vertical sockets* that look like this http://www.stockphotopro.com/photo-thumbs-2/B0YTD7.jpg - often you have appliances which have perpendicular cables http://jiefei.win.mofcom.gov.cn/www/1/jiefei/img/200952310743.jpg so plugging in two of those simply isn't going to work unless one is upside-down.

* For some reason, horizontal double sockets aren't that common, so you take the vertical one and mount it horizontally.

If you get spam that appears to be willingly sent from China, report it to the Ministry of Commerce. Hopefully if enough reports are received the Chinese Government will do something about the problem. I don't know what the equivalent organizations in Russia and the Baltic States are, I'd expect more action from the Baltic States, but given enough pressure Russia might be swayed too.