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Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

businessinsider.com

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Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#31

Post by melling »

tsycho wrote: post #5

If these numbers are accurate, then yuck!!! My disgust for software patents just went up even further. More seriously, I have a question for those who know more about this... 1. Are these generic, broad "idea" patents and hence there is nothing Google/OEMs can really do here to avoid licensing them? If not, why don't they use an alternative implementation to avoid the conflict? 2. If the answer to #1 is yes, how does…

Maybe it's more. This story has been around for a while. Back in May the estimate was $3.4 billion.

http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-most-profitable-mobile-opera...

Kind of surprising that people didn't see this coming 2 years ago and make more noise.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/microsoft-vs-android/8...

Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#33

Post by runn1ng »

rayiner wrote: post #4
nemothekid wrote: post #3

Of that, $2 billion in losses are attributable to the Xbox platform. Wow, I would have never imagined the Xbox division to be in dire straits.

Microsoft and Sony have lost $3-5bn on the PS3/XBox 360-generation of consoles.

Why do they keep doing something that costs them so much?

Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#34

Post by shmerl »

tsycho wrote: post #5

If these numbers are accurate, then yuck!!! My disgust for software patents just went up even further. More seriously, I have a question for those who know more about this... 1. Are these generic, broad "idea" patents and hence there is nothing Google/OEMs can really do here to avoid licensing them? If not, why don't they use an alternative implementation to avoid the conflict? 2. If the answer to #1 is yes, how does…

MS attempts to do everything possible to hide what patents they use for protection racket. Most probably because those patents are garbage and can be otherwise invalidated. Barnes and Noble almost got to that point, but MS quickly bribed them to prevent that from happening. Unfortunately, besides B&N no one had the guts to fight these racketeers.

Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#36

Post by Steko »

rayiner wrote: post #4
nemothekid wrote: post #3

Of that, $2 billion in losses are attributable to the Xbox platform. Wow, I would have never imagined the Xbox division to be in dire straits.

Microsoft and Sony have lost $3-5bn on the PS3/XBox 360-generation of consoles.

I've seen several "analysts" making this claim but they invariably include the original xbox losses in an effort to to make the profitable 360 business look bad. Examples:

http://www.neowin.net/images/uploaded/asfd3221125511352.jpg

http://g.foolcdn.com/img/editorial/xbox%20biz.png

Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#37

Post by brianpgordon »

mtgx wrote: post #10

How can a company so shamelessly extract money (through forceful deals, no doubt) from an open source OS, and get away with it? Linux companies dodged this bullet for the most part, from both Microsoft and SCU, but it seems Microsoft "succeeded" this time against Android with their mostly garbage patents in the same way patent trolls and mass-bittorrent lawsuits have succeeded so far - by scaring people/companies int…

SCU? You mean SCO?

Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#38

Post by camus2 »

recuter wrote: post #27
nickff wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>2. If the answer to #1 is yes, how does Apple avoid this problem? Are they also licensing from Microsoft? Or is Apple in some sort of a mutual cross-licensing agreement here to fight the common enemy Google? They are all in a sort of standoff, as they cannot sue each other without putting themselves at risk of counter-claims. In addition, there are a number of cross-licensing deals between various large patent-ownin…

Why doesn't google consider an attack against their vassal states aggression against its empire? Like a Cuban missle crisis of sorts.

Sony or Samsung are not vassal states of Google.

Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#39

Post by shmerl »

recuter wrote: post #27
nickff wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>2. If the answer to #1 is yes, how does Apple avoid this problem? Are they also licensing from Microsoft? Or is Apple in some sort of a mutual cross-licensing agreement here to fight the common enemy Google? They are all in a sort of standoff, as they cannot sue each other without putting themselves at risk of counter-claims. In addition, there are a number of cross-licensing deals between various large patent-ownin…

Why doesn't google consider an attack against their vassal states aggression against its empire? Like a Cuban missle crisis of sorts.

A good question, which probably is the reason why Google didn't drop Motorola case against MS (even though it wasn't a good one). But really Google can do more than that.

Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?

#40

Post by sker »

I always thought HTC and Samsung were exempt from these royalties by releasing their own Windows Phones. That's why Samsung doesn't care at all about their WP offerings.

Samsung, HTC, Apple and Nokia should account for over 50% of the global market. If my assumptions are correct, are the rest of the smaller players able to pay that much money on royalties alone?

I'll like to see some numbers. The article is seriously lacking data.

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