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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...
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.