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Microsoft Wants $15 Per Android Smartphone
sfcrazy writes "Microsoft Corp has demanded that Samsung Electronics Co Ltd pay $15 for each smartphone handset it makes based on Google Inc's Android operating system. The software giant claims to own a wide range of patents used in the mobile platform. From the article: 'Samsung would likely seek to lower the payment to about $10 in exchange for a deeper alliance with Microsoft for the U.S. company's Windows platform, the Maeil Business Newspaper quoted unnamed industry officials as saying.'"
You, Microsoft has a huge R&D division in the following subjects
- Algorithms and theory
- Hardware development
- Human–computer interaction
- Machine learning, adaptation, and intelligence
- Multimedia and graphics
- Search, retrieval, and knowledge management
- Security and cryptography
- Social computing
- Software development
- Systems, architectures, mobility, and networking
- Computational and Systems Biology
It's the largest one in the industry. They really do lots of research, and should enjoy the results aswell.
Samsung, nail them. It is in everybodies best interest to hit MS hard.
If their R&D is so awesome, why can't they make their own products and not resort to ripping off other businesses to make money?
How much does Microsoft want to license Windows Phone OS? My understanding is...around $15.
So, $15 to license Windows Phone 7 with a bunch of software that Microsoft paid to develop and has to maintain along with patent licenses, or $15 to license Android that doesn't contain a single line of Microsoft code but needs the patent licenses? I'm sure their patents are worth something, but this seems a wee bit overpriced.
And the worms ate into his brain.
Pay me now.
" They really do lots of research, and should enjoy the results aswell"
They bought startups, who had had the ideas.
Jerk - they were never allowed to enter telecom. They were were considered a bully in the 90s and all the telecom giants at the time made sure that their efforts never got a foothold.
Now, the Microsoft telecom wannabees are back with even more money, a nivce set of freshly bought companies and wants to wrestle themselves into some sort of importance.
For now I hope Nokia will drown into oblivion, slowly, while using W7.
There is nothing charming about Microsoft.
Eventually this will wind up with either Samsung entering a "mutual" royalty agreement where undisclosed patents are licensed by guys in trenchcoats, on a bridge, in fog.
Or, they'll go into court and to to patentville USA Marshall TX where every scumbag patent thicket group brings their IP litigation. It's friendlier in East Texas y'all.
It's the cost of doing business I guess.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
They really do lots of research, and should enjoy the results aswell.
Why did they put these benefits in Android and not in Windows?
Deleted
Stop this american madness... Samsung should start not paying and stop this madness of software patents!
Do it in a court or elsewhere but please please stop this human stupidity against progress!
Cheers,
Dear Microsoft, you don't innovate by rent-seeking. This is why no one cares what you are doing anymore. You have become irrelevant, like the other tech giants before you.
from the bottom of my heart; Fuck Off.
Does anyone know exactly what Microsoft's patents involve? Without knowing that, it's hard to make sense of any of these stories.
Based on the published newspaper articles so far, though, I must say it looks as if patent law is being used to accomplish the exact opposite of its supposed intent. Rather than guaranteeing an inventor the sole enjoyment of revenue from its innovations for a period, it is being used by a company that is not a serious player in the market to impede others from selling their products - and to give it a substantial stream of wholly unearned revenue.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
I'm pretty sure the actual amount is $699
Obligatory: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMgyi57s-A4
Then, what if i entitle myself to $15 worth of pirated microsoft products in return ?
Read radical news here
a pony.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Embedding an entire OS (WindRiver VXWorks) costs around $15 per system. Putting Java on a Blu-ray player or phone costs in a similar range ($5-15 I believe).
Microsoft contributed nothing to the development of this phone, except being the first ones to patent specific ideas. I'm all for protecting processes, but our patent system really needs to be fixed.
Its not what it is, its something else.
That's completely ridiculous. Microsoft didn't contribute a single line of code to those phones. Any patents they claim are likely periphery, just as with the Nook.
Some choice quotes from the Nook filing:
25. After sending the proposed license agreement, Microsoft confirmed the shockingly high licensing fees Microsoft was demanding, reiterating its exorbitant per device royalty for NookTM, and for the first time demanding a royalty for Nook ColorTM which was more than double the per device royalty Microsoft was demanding for NookTM. On information and belief, the license fees demanded by Microsoft are higher than what Microsoft charges for a license to its entire operating system designed for mobile devices,
43. Via the license price it demands and the onerous restrictions and termination provisions that would effectively require the negotiation of a new license each and every time a hardware or software update is made, Microsoft is leveraging the '372, '780, '522, '551, and '233 patents and its other patents to render the AndroidTM Operating System and other open source operating systems uncompetitive and unpalatable vis-a-vis Microsoft's own operating systems and force potential licensees to purchase Windows Phone 7 despite the fact that its patents claim only trivial and non-essential design elements, not an entire operating system.
And let's not forget that old chestnut the FAT patent. Nothing like rent charging your competitors just for being compatible. It's not like there aren't 100 other file systems they could use on flash cards, if just Windows supported any of them.
Note that when Barnes and Noble stood up to them, Microsoft didn't even have the balls to bring it out. It's pure mob tactics, and like true vampires they shun the light.
They deserve twice as much.
...and I love to party!
Samsung Galaxy S II Astonishes With 3 Million Units Sold in 55 Days
So there is $45 million that Microsoft figures Samsung must owe at $15 a pop. At that pace Microsoft expects about $289 million a year.
I suspect, and hope, that Samsung will figure they can risk a fraction of that to fight the legal battle for a few years. Perhaps invalidate a mass of patents ah la Oracle/Google.
Lurking at the bottom of the gravity well, getting old
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. - Mahatma Gandi
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
One thing that makes me really sick is to see a [powerful] company like Google sit idly by and simply watch trolls like Microsoft smear the Android OS.
Does Google think Microsoft's actions elevate Android's profile?
This is what I would do if I were Google:
Change Android's licence to at least require that any patent agreement entered into by an Android licensee with parties like Microsoft particularly pertaining to Android's 'infringements' be made public at least as far as what patents are involved.
Is this too much to expect?
Even if you can amass a large enough of a consumer revolt against a large economic entity behaving badly, it will just rig the system so it gets your money regardless of whether or not you actually do business with them. It is not just the officially labeled government you have to be concerned with regulating the market to death for it's own advantage. Any entity with enough power and influence to significantly manipulate the "free" market is a threat to it, not just the turd flinging buffoons in the capital. Hell, some of you understand this on some level, referring to it as a (Corporate Entity's Name) Tax. It might as well be that or some kind of fine. You have to pay it even though you do not necessarily get something you value in exchange from the entity that it goes to. And, it's is not limited to any one company, bank, trust, or nation by any stretch.
"It’s a big club, and you aint in it. You, and I are not in The Big Club." ... "The table has tilted folks. The game is rigged, and nobody seems to notice." - George Carlin
"Rent-seeking" comes to mind...
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
Microsoft is using Napoleon's tactic of dividing and conquering. Obviously the only way out for vendors is to unite and fight Microsoft's extortion attempts with their joint patent pool.
Apple has "Mac vs PC", Microsoft has "Laptop Hunters", Linux has recession
I want $15 per android smartphone too!
When will something be done about unneeded, innovation blocking and extortion encouraging system?
Of course! Nothing.
I want 10 cents Per Android Smart Phone.
Just because you want something does not mean you will get it. My kids wants XBOX, iPad, 60 inch TV in there room, etc. Not going to happen.
Even if there is patents involved I do not think the valuation for usage is even remotely fair. I see it just a monopolistic company, MS, exploiting this for its own benefit.
Samsung would be better off to spin off a third party company to supply the software and then drive that third party into the ground with costs and refuse to pay MS. When MS finally works its way through the courts just through that company into bankruptcy and MS can collect dick.
How the hell is this shit allowed to happen?
The USA patent system is very similar to the italian mafia system to me...
Do you know that the graphene inventor didn't patent it?
And the motivation ?
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101008/09595411336/why-this-year-s-physics-nobel-winner-never-patented-graphene.shtml
We considered patenting; we prepared a patent and it was nearly filed. Then I had an interaction with a big, multinational electronics company. I approached a guy at a conference and said, "We've got this patent coming up, would you be interested in sponsoring it over the years?" It's quite expensive to keep a patent alive for 20 years. The guy told me, "We are looking at graphene, and it might have a future in the long term. If after ten years we find it's really as good as it promises, we will put a hundred patent lawyers on it to write a hundred patents a day, and you will spend the rest of your life, and the gross domestic product of your little island, suing us." That's a direct quote.
I considered this arrogant comment, and I realized how useful it was. There was no point in patenting graphene at that stage. You need to be specific: you need to have a specific application and an industrial partner. Unfortunately, in many countries, including this one, people think that applying for a patent is an achievement. In my case it would have been a waste of taxpayers' money.
If I was Google I'd just fucking buy Microsoft, kick Balmer out on his fat ass, turn off the lights, lock the doors and walk away.
...and I probably deserve it about as much as Microsoft does, which as far as I can tell is not at all.
and so the end begins.
litigate...
this would seem pretty much bullshit unless the patents were explained. nobody does. thus there's nothing to talk about.
even then ... patents aren't worth a sht if you can't enforce them. methinks samsung is a korean company, it has only to worry about it's sales in the us market. how the fcuk can some jerk in us really believe he can simply patent something all over the world and get away with it? what a strange religion :D ms, patent this! (pointing at my balls)
obviously it is all bullshit, probably to spice up some deal they have already made.
If Google is allowed to make Android available to anyone for free, then why shouldn't Microsoft be allowed to competitively price their mobile OS at $0 as well? From that point of view it costs $15 for the mobile patent licenses either way, and WP7 is thrown in for free.
... assuming that Microsoft's claim isn't frivolous(not bloody likely), couldn't you hire some programmers and re-write the offending parts of the system? Wouldn't it cost about the same as paying of Microsoft and be worth it in the long run ?
Corporate license fee a modern name for plain old extortion.
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
Can't for the life of me find out what Patent numbers Microsoft owns here that are "part of" Android phones. What exactly is Samsung supposed to be licensing here???
Someone please help a poor Google weary fool.
Blamer (er I mean Balmer) will heave a chair at you.
Microsoft doesn't make any Android devices, nor did they provide any development assistance in writing it. Yet they feel entitled to collect money from all of us (it's not the manufacturer's who are paying this toll, it's the consumer). This needs to die a quick and final death.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Those who can't, hire Lawyers.
Apple wants $$$ for patents: they deserve it for bla bla bla bla
MS wants $$$ for patents: they are evil bla bla bla
Yes I know, nothing new under the sun, but I'm really getting upset about the growing number of apple-ites around here. Let's that at least these are not the same people that once were Linux fanboys.
Let it be up to the user what to run on it!
In fact, let me outline a procedure here, right now to prevent it from being patented by some moron:
User-selectable operating-system on a mobile phone or computing-platform with non-preloaded operating-systems.
A deployment-method for a product wherein the user can select an operating-system online, download it and have it transferred to the phone via their own computer or via the phone itself(!) without any os-specific components being preinstalled on the device.
This can be accomplished via a universal and openly documented bootloader-like system which can (but is not limited to) find an operating-system on the device and start it. Other functionality may be direct web-browsing and self-downloading of any publically available operating-system or a paid system through portals/networks for this task.
Outlet-stores may offer this downloading as a free service or at a charge, but any OS-choice is the users sole responsibility as long as this has been made clear to the customer in advance.
The outlined procedure is posted in the public domain and is considered free to use. No sole right to it's use can be claimed and no patents filed unless already filed. I did not read any such patents, nor be aware of them at the time of writing this and it comes as obvious to me that this is not patentable. If you run a journal accepted by the patent-animals, please feel free to cite this to make sure this is not lost as prior art. Any patent applications not yet approved would "appreciate" a referral aswell to make sure they are never approved.
...$15 to license the MS system, or pay $15 to get over their patents and still keep the OS better than the MS system...
''Samsung would likely seek to lower the payment to about $10 in exchange for a deeper alliance with Microsoft''
As the geek tells the story, global industrial giants like General Dynamics and Samsung are being bullied and battered into submission to Microsoft --
Here at last is something closer to the truth:
Strategic alliances are being forged among companies with many common interests --
while Little Brother Evo and Big Daddy Google watch helplessly from the sidelines? This makes no sense whatever if Microsof's patent portfolio is a weak as the geek likes to think.
Behold, the lame, prior art ridden Microsoft patents:
The ’853 patent misrepresented the state of the art at the time the patent was filed by stating that “a need exists for permitting a user to perform all operations of a mouse-type device using a stylus.” This, however, is demonstrably incorrect. The ’536 and ’853 patents were filed in November 2000. Long before that time, numerous systems had been developed that enabled computer users to simulate mouse behavior with touch input devices. For example, U.S. Patent No. 5,327,161 to Logan et al., entitled “System and Method for Emulating a Mouse Input Device with a Touchpad Input Device” (the “’161 patent”), was issued in 1994, years before the ’536 and ’853 patents were even filed.
The ’161 patent discloses a touchpad input device or touch-sensitive device that “can be used to replace the mouse cursor locator/input device in mouse-driven personal computers.” (Col. 1, ll. 18-20.) The touchpad in the ’161 patent performs functions of a mouse. Further evincing the lack of inventiveness of the subject matter set forth in the ’536 and ’853 patents, the ’161 patent noted that touchpad technology had been disclosed in patents that issued as early as 1978
The 522 patent relates to nothing more than putting known tab controls into an operating system for use by all applications, rather than providing these tabs on an application-by-application basis
The ’551 patent relates to using handles to change the size of selection areas for selected text
The 913 patent, which relates to storing input/output access factors in a shared data structure, and which clearly could not preclude the use of an entire operating system
The final asserted patent, the ’233 patent, relates to the storing and displaying of annotations of text which is not modifiable. As noted in other portions of this Answer, Affirmative Defenses, and Counterclaims, the claims of the ’233 patent are unenforceable because they were procured via inequitable conduct. During prosecution, Microsoft and its attorneys failed to disclose a prior art reference, U.S. Patent No. 5,146,552 to Cassorla et al., that the European Patent Office identified as pertinent and invalidating. Further, Microsoft even failed to disclose the European Patent Office’s assessment and description of the prior art, despite the fact that such assessment and description conflicted with Microsoft’s representations of the prior art to its invention. Moreover, in addition to being unenforceable, other prior art renders the ’233 patent’s claims invalid.
I was about to purchase new Anderson windows for my house. I then heard that Microsoft wanted $15 for each one I installed. So instead, I bought some window frames from the local habitat for humanity re-store store, and installed my own glass. I ended up with beautiful reliable windows in my home without them randomly turning blue and having to be removed and re-installed.
Hey Samsung, You tell Microsoft that I deleted the OS after buying my Galaxy S. And I have re-installed an OS, which ever OS i please...
So what is all your phone sales were like that... Not having a pre-installed OS, but a very simple option to install the OS.
I hope Samsung doesn't start paying royalties to Microsoft when a phone it sells has its original OS removed...
That wouldn't be fair now would it ?
Dear Microsoft, I want a pony. Screwoff.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
I don't understand why Microsoft wants $15 on Android software.
May all you dirty whores rot in hell. Thank you very much.
It really bugs me that M$ is doing this, but MORE that Samsung is playing... Tit For Tat, SO, may they rot in the legal hell they are creating.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. Emo Philips
This situation is absolute insanity. MS isn't making any friends by doing this. What I hope is for all these manufacturers to give MS a collective F*#K YOU, and file all sorts of lawsuits and cancel any agreements they have, and avoid using any of their products.
Isn't anyone collecting royalties from PC manufacturers bundling Microsoft products?
Sudheer Satyanarayana
www.techchorus.net
Microsoft needs to get a slap round the face and fight competitors with a better product instead of this Patent trolling. I wasn't keen on Windows phone before but there's no fucking way I'm buying another of Microsoft's products after this latest swathe of trolling. Microsoft is becoming the new SCO.
The cnet editors randomly make up stuff to post as articles all the time. They even admit it here: "So far, neither Microsoft nor its licensees have said what the software company charges for its patents, but Mary Jo Foley of CNET sister site ZDNet believes that the $15-per-Android-handset fee" Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20077173-17/report-microsoft-wants-$15-per-android-handset/#ixzz1RLZoJk9b That is hilarious. That's right, their logic is "Another blogger said it so it must be true!" Hilarious and sad too, because they do it all the time. Most of their articles are written by bloggers who posit no link to an original journalism piece, cementing the fact that they just write whatever they feel like/are payed for and go on with their day trying to censor comments. Even the Reuters article they link to does not have a official sentence from Microsoft, only another non-official non-verifyable likely-fabricated sentence that allegedly says that Samsung might conceivably possibly pay $10 per device if the benefits worked out. Oh yeah, grade A professional bullshit from one of the nations leading online bullshit factories. Fox News Online 2.0! Get it now!
The problem is not with Android or Google. Microsoft has patented certain actions for this device class. If you ship Android without support for those actions, then you are safe. But those features are essential to the normal functioning of the product in it's target markets. Google cannot do anything about it! [ I am seriously thinking if I should patent my farting style. Will need to document the angle, length of time, sound level, temperature and aromatic properties. May be I should contact the lawyer from NY who is trying to register the BITCOIN trademark, eh?]
Not quite. The priest of the catholic church are more into under-aged boys.
Not all of course. There was a report on German TV about the catholic priest which lived a normal live with his wife and daughter. “Just don't show my face, my employer does and must not know.”
We are only at the beginning of Microsoft's vast and long road to do whatever it can to pin the competition and keep real competitors from stealing away market share. I would like to see what supposed violations Android has, and if they are for items that Microsoft actively develops. Shame on Microsoft and its products.
I really feel all that google higher and higher rank in the digital world ..... I have a article how google was king
http://att-smartphone.blogspot.com