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Microsoft Makes an Astonishing $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties

Posted by Soulskill on from the isn't-innovation-wonderful dept.

mrspoonsi sends this report from Business Insider: "Microsoft is generating $2 billion per year in revenue from Android patent royalties, says Nomura analyst Rick Sherlund in a new note on the company. He estimates that the Android revenue has a 95% margin, so it's pretty much all profit. This money, says Sherlund, helps Microsoft hide the fact that its mobile and Xbox groups are burning serious cash."

3 of 304 comments (clear)

  1. patent vs copyright by Chirs · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Technically it's only the implementation of an idea that is supposed to be patentable. With physical patents if you can accomplish the same thing by other means then it's fair game.

    Somehow in software they've decided to allow patenting the *idea* of momentum when scrolling via swiping, or bounceback when you hit the end.

    The equivalent to patenting physical implementations would be to allow protection of their *implementation* of an idea--and in the software world that implementation is already protected by copyright, so there's really no need for software patents.

  2. Re:Two billion bucks... by whoever57 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I have never understood this. Windows users are used to installing drivers for each new piece of hardware. Why not bundle an ext4 driver? The device could even have a small FAT partiton (without the patented parts of FAT) that contains the driver for the larger ext4 partition.

    Manufacturers have allowed the situation to exist.

    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  3. Re:Gates was on the right track.. by timeOday · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The benchmark is Microsoft's return on investment from their investment in Mobile, starting in the early 90's I'd guess.

    This gets to an odd contradiction right in the summary: the mobile division is "burning serious cash," yet also making $2B which is "pretty much all profit." It's as if the author sees no connection between investing in a business unit to generate intellectual property, and subsequently profiting from that investment.