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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 legal division expert in the following subjects
- Barratry
- Intimidation
- Patent trolling
ftfy
Trolling is a art,
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.
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
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.
Yeah, because surely Slashdot doesn't have hundreds of thousands of unique visitors some of which hold the former view and some of which hold the latter. It's just one guy in his basement. And you. And me.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
No. No one has. Patents are a scam, a hindrance to innovation and the free market. They must be ABOLISHED.
Circumcision is child abuse.
I think I recall that site. It said that Microsoft's only innovation in user interfaces was the combo box -- which is a terrible design.
Like the one used to assign mod points? Oh, the irony!
So when Apple sues Samsung, everyone cheers and claims Apple has every right to defend it's patents.
Where was this? Around here the torches and pitchforks were waving about how you shouldn't be able to protect 'look and feel'.
There's plenty of hypocrisy here, you just found the wrong example.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I'm more inclined to believe Slashdot gives IBM a pass is because, unlike MS, they don't have an arrogant jackass for a CEO that goes around laughing at their competitors and intentionally crashing competitor's products at trade shows. The guy is a no-class buffoon. That's probably got a little something to do with why Slashdot seems to have a collective chip on its shoulder towards MS vs other mega-corps.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
It's a game of poker. You have to pay to play.
Here's what I think. If any patents used to make such threats turn out to be bad or unsupportable, they get converted to charges of extortion.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
How about Jobs deliberately misquoting Samsung even after Samsung had publicly corrected it? http://blogs.forbes.com/elizabethwoyke/2011/03/02/oops-steve-jobs-misquotes-samsung-at-ipad-2-event/ How about Jobs laughing at their competitors and calling them copy cats? http://crave.cnet.co.uk/laptops/steve-jobs-slams-android-samsung-and-ipad-2-rivals-as-copycats-50003016/ AND then going ahead and blatantly copying Android notification system. Yep, year of the copy cat it is. Except this time it's Apple doing the copying.
The fact that something is re-invented multiple times in isolation is the very definition of obvious.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.