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Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?
81–90 of 90 posts
Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?
#82does anyone know which patents they're asserting? FAT?
Barnes and Noble tried to make the list public. They got, IIRC, a billion dollars and a "partnership" (mostly the money) in exchange for shutting up. AFAIK, the list is still secret.
That's not true and has turned into something of an urban legend with uninformed people repeating the claim. Here is the list http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/070611-microsoft-andro...
Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?
#83Hopefully - and I really hope this - most of these patents are stupid stuff from the early days of graphical operating systems and are ready to expire in the next few years (given a 20 year lifespan for most patents).
> given a 20 year lifespan for most patents From what I've read, in the US a patent is valid until 20 years after it is granted, retroactive to the date that it's filled. That can be a 40 years interval, or more, if the USPTO don't do it's job well (and I know of patents that did go over 30 years).
The US patent term is 20 years from filing as of June 8, 1995. Previous to that it worked as you describe, with a term of 17 years from issuance.
The trouble, of course, is that we're still in that window. A patent filed in 1994 but not issued for many years thereafter may still be in effect.
Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If you look at those patents, you'll see that they are bizarrely trivial. They may or may not be trivial, but I've only known the patent numbers for an hour, and you only knew them for 15 minutes when you posted--and it is not possible to have read them in sufficient detail to make such a judgement in that time. To find out what a patent actually covers you have to read more than just the title and the abstract. Th…
Hmm, since we're on the topic, and IIRC you have experience in these matters, could you take a quick look at this comment of mine, and let me know if my take on it is inaccurate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540902 Essentially, I looked at B&N's reply to Microsoft's complaint and it looked really weak to me. I wanted to know if my evaluation is wrong. As an aside, the whole thread above that comment is prett…
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I only went about 98% of the way through law school (I decided I'd rather be a programmer who knew a fair amount of law than a lawyer who knew a lot about programming, and never got around to completing a paper for my last class). I did get a close look at the whole patent suit process later, when a patent that I am a co-inventor on ended up involved in a lawsuit (not of my choice or with my approval), so I got to be deposed a couple times, answer a lot of questions from lawyers, and spend a month living in an annoying hotel in Texas for the trial, and while there got to talk a lot with the lawyers. If an actual lawyer steps in here to answer, take whatever they say over whatever I say.
OK, now that the disclaimer is done (and is longer than my answer, which will probably make people doubt my claim to not be a lawyer!), it looks to me like your take is accurate. Their answer does not give much detail.
Your speculation in the last paragraph, that this is normal for answers to complaints, is also correct I believe. The complaint and answer are not where the parties start to argue the case. The complaint is to tell the court what wrong you think was done to you, and why you think the court has jurisdiction over the defendant and over the subject matter.
The answer is to tell the court which things in the complaint that you concede are true, which you claim are false, and which you cannot answer at this time because you do not have enough information.
Basically, the complaint and answer together let the court know what it is dealing with.
The meaty details start coming in when the suit gets to the stage where the parties are filing pre-trial motions for things like summary judgement on various parts of the complaint, and later when the trial actually gets underway.
Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Barnes and Noble tried to make the list public. They got, IIRC, a billion dollars and a "partnership" (mostly the money) in exchange for shutting up. AFAIK, the list is still secret.
That's not true and has turned into something of an urban legend with uninformed people repeating the claim. Here is the list http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/070611-microsoft-andro...
Also, by my dangerously semi-informed understanding, B&N's defense looked really weak (see previous comment on same topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540902). I'd still like a real attorney to weigh in on my opinion, though.
So I really don't buy the "B&N scared Microsoft into bribing it" story. To me, it seems more like a "B&N tried a Hail Mary shot at getting an antitrust thing going against Microsoft, and when that failed miserably, they sold a cheap stake in their ebook business" story. Consider that ebook content is something Microsoft's ecosystem didn't (and still does not) have compared to Apple, Google and Amazon's ecosystems. Consider also that this ebook content comes without the lawsuits and publisher-wrangling the others had to go through.
So, $300M for a quick entry into a market where its competitors are incumbents seems like Microsoft got a pretty decent deal, and I think that patent lawsuit provided leverage.
Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?
#86...claims analyst, with absolutely nothing backing up their claim. The headline appears as if Microsoft accountants stated this as a fact, when in reality this is someone essentially reading tea leaves. Further it's worth noting that the division that these Android royalties are attributed to also garners all other patent licensing royalties of any sort (e.g. FAT), as well as licensing charges such as ActiveSync lice…
Sherlund says that if you back out the Android profits, Microsoft is probably losing $2.5 billion on Skype, Xbox, and Windows Phone. Of that, $2 billion in losses are attributable to the Xbox platform. He appears to be saying that the Xbox platform loses $2 billion per year. Everything I've read says that the Xbox has been profitable every year since 2008. Just one example source: http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/new…
The only reason Xbox was 'profitable' was due to an accounting trick.
The Ultimate SKU of Windows commanded a premium license fee due to the inclusion of Windows Media Center, created by the eHome division. eHome, from an accounting perspective was part of IEB, the group that had the Xbox P&L.
I don't remember the exact license fees but Windows Vista Home was something like $30 and Windows Vista Ultimate was $75 to OEMs. That means for every copy of the Ultimate MS sold about $45 of revenue went to IEB from Windows.
When we envisioned eHome and Media Center we thought we were going to revolutionize the living room. Instead we ended up building a feature in Windows MS could charge more for.
Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do they also get money from Motorola?
http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/04/just-like-one-week-ago-wh... "Google's Motorola Mobility, which prefers litigation even though it's a grossly unsuccessful strategy for Google " and http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/04/setback-for-google-german...
fosspatents is an Oracle and MS shill.
Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, since we're on the topic, and IIRC you have experience in these matters, could you take a quick look at this comment of mine, and let me know if my take on it is inaccurate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540902 Essentially, I looked at B&N's reply to Microsoft's complaint and it looked really weak to me. I wanted to know if my evaluation is wrong. As an aside, the whole thread above that comment is prett…
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. I only went about 98% of the way through law school (I decided I'd rather be a programmer who knew a fair amount of law than a lawyer who knew a lot about programming, and never got around to completing a paper for my last class). I did get a close look at the whole patent suit process later, when a patent that I am a co-inventor on ended up involved in a lawsuit (not of my choice or wi…
Ahh, that is very helpful, thanks. So my evaluation of their answer was premature, but I guess no more premature than those who would take it as an indication that "B&N sure showed Microsoft".
Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. Rick Sherlund has a history of saying that Microsoft should be divided up, and Xbox should definitely be spun off [1, 2, 3]. He even said Samsung should take over Xbox division [4]. Even if MS earns $1 Billion from patents that exclude "legitimate" licensing, I think that would be a big number and definitely should be looked into. [1] - http://www.geekwire.com/2013/sherlund-microsoft-should-consi... [2] - ht…
Microsoft's divisions (most notably Xbox) have always had a huge dilemma: Do we act in a way that's best for our division, or do we maximize value for MSFT. From my time at Xbox, I can say with certainty that the implied actions for each choice are often not the same.
I think (and a lot of other would agree with me on this) that the Xbox division within Microsoft is the most customer-centric of any company in the entire world.
The people at Xbox are die hard gamers who really want to help you solve your problem whatever it might be. I don't know if spinning off one of the best divisions would be such a smart division specially when it is already profitable, unlike Bing.
Re: Microsoft Earns $2 Billion Per Year From Android Patent Royalties?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft's divisions (most notably Xbox) have always had a huge dilemma: Do we act in a way that's best for our division, or do we maximize value for MSFT. From my time at Xbox, I can say with certainty that the implied actions for each choice are often not the same.
I think (and a lot of other would agree with me on this) that the Xbox division within Microsoft is the most customer-centric of any company in the entire world. The people at Xbox are die hard gamers who really want to help you solve your problem whatever it might be. I don't know if spinning off one of the best divisions would be such a smart division specially when it is already profitable, unlike Bing.
But would it be more profitable on its own if it didn't have to conform to things like...Windows Phone integration (only)....Live ID signin, etc.?