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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.
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.
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
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.
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
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
''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.
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.
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
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.