Slashdot Mirror
Samsung Paid Microsoft $1 Billion Last Year In Android Royalties
An anonymous reader writes: According to recently unsealed court filings, Samsung Electronics paid Microsoft more than $1 billion in annual fees to use patented Microsoft technology in Samsung's Android phones. The patent treasures include methods for displaying multiple windows in a Web browser. "Samsung originally signed its patent deal with Microsoft in 2011, ahead of its impressive dominance of Android shipments, but late last year Samsung decided it was tired of paying on time, or paying interest when a late payment was finally made. Microsoft has taken Samsung to court over the issues, and the Korean company insists it wants to walk away from the original deal because of Microsoft’s purchase of Nokia’s phone business. Samsung claims the acquisition invalidates the cross-licensing IP agreement, but Microsoft doesnt agree and wants the company to pay $6.9 million in unpaid interest from last year."
Really?
All large companies have the same IP strategy and they behave exactly the same simply because they can. MS is no exception. Grow up already.
Android makers are far from being as slow as you imply. If these patents would be worthless, they wouldn't pay anything in the first place.
Phones and tablets do not replace desktops and laptops. Chances are you wrote your post on a laptop.
MS has a much wider product line than you imply. Using Skype perhaps?
Bloated manpower? Mind to prove this statement?
Yep, pretty much every article references Google being sued or countersuing after being sued.
That said I did use google to search so the results could be biased. :)
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I don't know if you missed it, but it clearly says "STRIKES BACK."
Apple has been a patent lawsuit asshole every since Android roflstomped them in the market.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
"On a computer" is a magical phrase. If no one has patented it yet, it's fair game - everything on a computer is novel to the patent office.
Not anymore since the US Supreme Court's verdict in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank.
Sorry. Google, Motorola, Samsung, etc. have used patents purely in defensive mode. Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Erricsson etc. are the litigious bastards.
Excuse me? Google/Motorola trying to extract four billion dollars out of Microsoft for some .mp3 patents? Samsung being told by the EU that they could face a fine up to $17 billion unless they stop trying to use their patents in anti-competitive ways?
By that logic, Intel will always have a noose around its neck now, because x64 architecture is also known after its inventor and patent holder: amd64.
Intel's 64 bit architecture, IA64 is more commonly remembered by the nick name of its only CPU: Itanic.
And x64 will remain extremely important for foreseeable future.
Don't forget that AMD has created the X86_64 instruction set, forcing Intel to cross-license the X86 and X86_64 instruction set forever with AMD. This is a extremely important step as 32 bits only X85 chips is close to be irrelevant, even if Windows OS market is so retarded that many of it users still don't use 64 bits OS. On the other hand, ARM64 will possibly be the next big problem for Intel in the server market, after it has basically completely lost the embedded market to 32 bits ARM. AMD has choose to play with each instruction set, and this could be a winning strategy in the future.