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Microsoft Increases Android Patent Licensing Reach
BrianFagioli writes: Microsoft may not be winning in the mobile arena, but they're still making tons of money from those who are. Patent licensing agreements net the company billions each year from device makers like Samsung, Foxconn, and ZTE. Now, Microsoft has added another company to that list: Qisda Corp. They make a number of Android and Chrome-based devices under the Qisda brand and the BenQ brand, and now Microsoft will be making money off those, too.
What are the actual MS patents for which these Android companies are paying royalties? TFS and every one of TFAs don't say, don't even hint.
Look here?
I tried to make a more readable version of similar data on this wiki page:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Micro...
Help appreciated.
Help build the anti-software-patent wiki
This is getting pretty weird. Windows Phone is now free, right? So if a phone maker builds WinPhones, do they pay Microsoft nothing for the same patents? Is that legal - to charge a patent royalty to device makers using somebody else's software - using no Microsoft code, while allowing makers of devices using Microsoft software to pay no software or patent fees?
Microsoft may not have a monopoly on mobile, but the patents in question are surely based on their desktop monopoly. For instance, FAT32. No device maker uses FAT32 because it's a good file system. They use it because of the Microsoft desktop monopoly. So to charge Android device makers a patent royalty on essentially the ability to be compatible with Windows desktops - while letting WinPhone device makers ride free - amounts to illegal tying of WinPhone to their Windows monopoly position, no?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
...and yet the EU goes after Google for supposedly anti-competitive behavior for Android, which they provide for free. Along with Google apps and services. Or without them. Yes, there's some grey area where an OEM has to be all Google or all AOSP. And maybe that should be disallowed. But surely, charging OEM's to use your competitor's software and not charging them to use yours is a bigger violation, no?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
If anything points out that software patents should be completely thrown out it's this kind of nonsense. The computer world used to joke about the "Microsoft tax" on new computers due to the cost of Windows. This is, literally, a Microsoft tax on Android devices. At least with Windows you got something, this is money for nothing. This is not what the patent system was designed to do.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
So Microsoft bullies in the courtroom.
Well, not only this: their attempts at making motherboards Window-only bootable is also a despicable maneuver.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Microsoft contributes something (its patents - so others can use them and make money)
Scenario A: Google back when they initially developed Android ran into a design roadblock. They saw no way to solve the particular problem until one of the developers read a MS patent that solved their issue. MS is therefore paid royalties on their patent.
Scenario B: Google developed Android without ever having heard of any MS patents. Once Android became popular MS lawyers studied their patents trying to stretch them enough to find infringement. They bully the Android phone makers into paying billions. In this scenario Android would have been exactly the same product without the MS patents and MS is being paid billions for nothing.
Scenario A is what the patent system was supposed to be. Scenario B is reality most of the time today. Question is if the few cases of Scenario A justifies all the Scenario B's.
Microsoft does no work, provides zero value, and yet rakes it in off other companies who labor and provide value.
The patent system is working as intended.
The competition didn't bother because the law says that you have to pay royalties even if you came up with the idea independently.
For extraordinarily small values of probably. Lobbying is measured in millions, unlike the billions for research. And for whatever it's worth, Google spends more on lobbying than Microsoft does. Or anybody else.
Microsoft did the research and built the tech, anyone who doesn't want to pay royalties is free to fund their own R&D and develop their own technology.
Unlike copyrights, patents disregard provenance. This means that even someone who does fund his own research and development could end up independently reaching the same solutions* that Microsoft engineers reached. This would run the risk of having production shut down by Microsoft's legal department.
Again, vendors are free to develop their own technology, nothing stops them
One thing that stops them is the exclusive license granted by national radio regulators to cellular network operators. All cellular network operators holding substantial spectrum leases have chosen to require the use of patented protocols to communicate with their networks.
* "Same" here shall be interpreted in accordance with the doctrine of equivalents.
Actually Robertson screws are a good example of a superiour product that didn't catch on (at least in the States, they've always been common in Canada) due to licensing. P. L. Robertson refused to license manufacturer to most everyone including Henry Ford who found using Robertson screws cut a couple of hours off building a Model T so Ford used Philips instead, at least in America.
I curse every time I deal with a Philips and smile when using a Robertson.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
It's called bundling. Microsoft can't say which specific patents are being violated because they aren't completely sure. Some they do know, others they think may be, depending on how Android is configured and what apps are installed.
Instead, they say "we know you are violating a bunch of our patents. Our one-time offer is a license to 1000's of our patents [but not all, as we still reserve the right to ask for more later] for an up-front fee, money for already-shipped devices, and a per-unit royalty in perpetuity."
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!