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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?

#71

Post by [deleted] »

shmerl wrote: post #55
tzs wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are a bit confused. When Microsoft sued Barnes and Noble, the patents they were suing over were disclosed in their public court filings. Over a dozen were identified [1]. [1] http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/070611-microsoft-andro...

So they did disclose them? No doubt under pressure from B&N. If you look at those patents, you'll see that they are bizarrely trivial. Such things should never be patentable in the first place. Surely invalidating them can be not so easy, but it can be possible. It's one of the reasons why MS attempts to push NDAs as much as possible (we are lucky this was disclosed in those cases). Probably only a minority of their…

[deleted]

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

#72

Post by 300bps »

corresation wrote: post #44

...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/news/a512543/microsoft-back...

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

#73

Post by anuraj »

nickff wrote: post #24
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…

>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…

Apple has a cross licensing agreement with MS, done at the time of Steve Jobs.

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

#74

Post by anuraj »

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…

Android is not fully open source nor are critical components of mobile firmware including base band and graphics code.

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

#75

Post by killme »

rbanffy wrote: post #58
leeoniya wrote: post #17

does 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.

Wrong, here's the list. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/070611-microsoft-andro...

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

#76

Post by [deleted] »

anuraj wrote: post #74
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…

Android is not fully open source nor are critical components of mobile firmware including base band and graphics code.

[deleted]

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

#77

Post by nl »

runn1ng wrote: post #33
rayiner wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Razor, Blades.

Microsoft: Halo Series has Generated $3 Billion in Revenue

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2012/10/31/microsoft-halo-series...

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

#78

Post by mistermann »

anuraj wrote: post #73
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…

Apple has a cross licensing agreement with MS, done at the time of Steve Jobs.

I wonder if (and how far) Steve Jobs was looking into the future when he did this, and how well, if at all, it has served Apple considering their more impressive innovations since then.

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

#79

Post by throwawaykf02 »

tzs wrote: post #65
shmerl wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they did disclose them? No doubt under pressure from B&N. If you look at those patents, you'll see that they are bizarrely trivial. Such things should never be patentable in the first place. Surely invalidating them can be not so easy, but it can be possible. It's one of the reasons why MS attempts to push NDAs as much as possible (we are lucky this was disclosed in those cases). Probably only a minority of their…

> 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 pretty similar to this subthread.

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

#80

Post by anuraj »

mistermann wrote: post #78
anuraj wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has a cross licensing agreement with MS, done at the time of Steve Jobs.

I wonder if (and how far) Steve Jobs was looking into the future when he did this, and how well, if at all, it has served Apple considering their more impressive innovations since then.

I would think Steve clearly saw the onslaught coming up and probably had an early director part as well - By end 90s MS had become a benefactor to Apple and both were no longer threats to each other. The enemy now was Google and its plans of global domination - I suspect, Steve - the master mind that he was saw the merits in ganging together against a common enemy.

It was common knowledge from early days that Android infringed on several OS and mobile patents. Also note Andy Rubin sold Android predecessor - Danger OS to MS along with all IP. It was just a question of when and how the IP assertion happens.

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