Samsung Paid Microsoft $1 Billion Last Year In Android Royalties 93
An anonymous reader writes: According to recently unsealed court filings, Samsung Electronics paid Microsoft more than $1 billion in annual fees to use patented Microsoft technology in Samsung's Android phones. The patent treasures include methods for displaying multiple windows in a Web browser. "Samsung originally signed its patent deal with Microsoft in 2011, ahead of its impressive dominance of Android shipments, but late last year Samsung decided it was tired of paying on time, or paying interest when a late payment was finally made. Microsoft has taken Samsung to court over the issues, and the Korean company insists it wants to walk away from the original deal because of Microsoft’s purchase of Nokia’s phone business. Samsung claims the acquisition invalidates the cross-licensing IP agreement, but Microsoft doesnt agree and wants the company to pay $6.9 million in unpaid interest from last year."
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
When has google sued someone for software patent infringement? i can't recall a single case that wasn't in self defense.
Microsoft on the other hand, has been known for suing outright as well as shady deals like SCO, Nokia and other scummy tactics.
Luckily, Microsoft is circling the toilet bowl and won't be relevant years from now.
Re:And? (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, pretty much every article references Google being sued or countersuing after being sued.
That said I did use google to search so the results could be biased. :)
Re: And? (Score:1)
Re:And? (Score:4, Informative)
I don't know if you missed it, but it clearly says "STRIKES BACK."
Apple has been a patent lawsuit asshole every since Android roflstomped them in the market.
Re:And? (Score:5, Insightful)
Luckily, Microsoft is circling the toilet bowl and won't be relevant years from now.
Man, I wish I could be circling the drain with $22 billions in profit in the last 12 months. The smartphone/tablet explosion has led to a decline in the PC market but it's still 80-90% of the max volume with Microsoft still having a 90%+ PC market share. Sure, they'd like a do-over to make even more money in the phone/tablet market but they're very, very far from hurting. And unless any of the major Android manufacturers decide to get serious about x86 then Microsoft and Intel will still be allies in the struggle against Android/Apple, which is to their advantage. I think you vastly underestimate what it takes to kill a mega-corporation like that, AMD took a good stab at Intel yet lost eventually. And even if they do fail, they'll take much longer than that to die and wither away. At least those who don't have Elop as a CEO, Microsoft might have dodged a bullet there...
Re:And? (Score:5, Interesting)
The smartphone/tablet explosion has led to a decline in the PC market but it's still 80-90% of the max volume with Microsoft still having a 90%+ PC market share.
Problem is the PC market is long saturated and now showing obvious signs of decline. Meanwhile, Microsoft has little to no presence in ANYTHING that is replacing it. Think what Apple was prior to iPod/Pad/Phone; that's Microsoft's future if things continue on the present course.
And unless any of the major Android manufacturers decide to get serious about x86 then Microsoft and Intel will still be allies in the struggle against Android/Apple
From what I understand, Intel is working towards riding the Android train, and they supposedly have more engineers working on Android than even Google does. Their idea is to have x86 eventually replace ARM as the de-facto architecture of Android, which involves a two way race of getting Android to run more efficiently on x86, and then build x86 to be more energy efficient than ARM. It seems they already have a lot invested into both of those races.
Also, HP seems to be pushing rather aggressively to have Android run on business desktop systems. Lenovo, ASUS, and Acer seem to have similar goals, though not as much as HP.
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Problem is the PC market is long saturated and now showing obvious signs of decline.
The PC market was not saturated, until tablets came along they were growing along with the growing digitization of the world. It declined as the western world bought their first tablet instead of a new laptop, very many now have both and the decline is almost stopped as predictions are -3% or so for the PC market in 2014. The indications are that the world is still in a booming need for more "computing devices" like smart phones, tablets and PCs with smart phones and tablets stealing all the growth while th
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Microsoft is still growing significantly, and Windows is not their biggest business.
Blackberry was still growing at a time when Android had already owned the market. The reason why is because the market itself was growing much faster. That fact didn't save them when their future prospects dried up though. Desktop systems are no longer the future consumer grade technology.
That doesn't mean desktops will go away, rather they'll eventually become the same as what feature phones currently are to smartphones. You know who dominated the feature phone space until recently? Nokia.
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I'm not predicting Microsoft's demise, rather just saying that they'll step out of the limelight. Even during its worst years of slowest growth, Apple was still a multi-billion dollar company.
At any rate, Microsoft already are no longer the dominant consumer OS vendor; that crown now belongs to Google as Android alone (not even counting chrome OS) already runs on more devices than Windows, iOS, and OSX combined.
http://www.businessinsider.com... [businessinsider.com]
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From what I understand, Intel is working towards riding the Android train, and they supposedly have more engineers working on Android than even Google does. ...
That's not hard. HTC even has had more software engineers working on Android than Google does, for far longer than Intel has. Google seems to think that if it increases the number of developers working on the Android team, it could make things worse [c2.com].
This is not to say that your main point is not valid. It is. Intel is indeed investing heavily on Android. And thank god that it has. The much faster x86 Intel emulator has actually been a life saver for many Android Developers.
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That's a stupid bet. Why not create their own ARM chips from scratch? The ARM instruction set itself is not owned by ARM.
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If they try for monopoly or nothing, they may end up with nothing if x86 dies.
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Also, HP seems to be pushing rather aggressively to have Android run on business desktop systems. Lenovo, ASUS, and Acer seem to have similar goals, though not as much as HP.
This! This is what will be the downfall of Microsoft. It will be sudden and it will final. Microsoft burned ALL of their bridges getting to where they are now. Once the business desktop is lost, the rest of it will fall for Microsoft within a few years. They have a small prayer of staying alive with their Microsoft Office line of software after that... but I would not bet on it.
Re:And? (Score:5, Informative)
By that logic, Intel will always have a noose around its neck now, because x64 architecture is also known after its inventor and patent holder: amd64.
Intel's 64 bit architecture, IA64 is more commonly remembered by the nick name of its only CPU: Itanic.
And x64 will remain extremely important for foreseeable future.
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>AMD64 was created as an alternative to the radically different IA-64 architecture, which was designed by Intel and Hewlett Packard. Originally announced in 1999[11] with a full specification
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However x86 patents will expire much sooner than x64 ones will. Which makes the noose far, FAR more powerful in comparison.
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Re:And? (Score:5, Informative)
Don't forget that AMD has created the X86_64 instruction set, forcing Intel to cross-license the X86 and X86_64 instruction set forever with AMD. This is a extremely important step as 32 bits only X85 chips is close to be irrelevant, even if Windows OS market is so retarded that many of it users still don't use 64 bits OS. On the other hand, ARM64 will possibly be the next big problem for Intel in the server market, after it has basically completely lost the embedded market to 32 bits ARM. AMD has choose to play with each instruction set, and this could be a winning strategy in the future.
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You know, if the iMac had a touch screen, they could justify the thing being so damn heavy.
PCs will become big screened tablets, with a keyboard and a mouse. They already are, and are extremely practical. I don't know why Apple is holding off.
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Gorilla Arm
Nevertheless, Microsoft is doomed (Score:5, Interesting)
What the large monies paid by Samsung indicates is the enormous mindshare and marketshare for Android. Windows on the mobile and tablet space is non-existent. For some years Microsoft might make money out of Android sales using these patent threats, being the litigious thugs they are.
But in a few years - say three at the max, Android makers will realise that these patents are really worthless, and back away from their agreements.
In any case a few billions in patent royalty is pocket change for Microsoft, and their bloated manpower will plunge them into the death spiral since Windows is becoming fast irrelevant in the only space it serves - viz, the desktop.
Re:Nevertheless, Microsoft is doomed (Score:5, Informative)
Really?
All large companies have the same IP strategy and they behave exactly the same simply because they can. MS is no exception. Grow up already.
Android makers are far from being as slow as you imply. If these patents would be worthless, they wouldn't pay anything in the first place.
Phones and tablets do not replace desktops and laptops. Chances are you wrote your post on a laptop.
MS has a much wider product line than you imply. Using Skype perhaps?
Bloated manpower? Mind to prove this statement?
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Perhaps Samsung should just stop infringing Microsoft IP. Do their own stuff. Not copy. Be good people.
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Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank (Score:5, Informative)
"On a computer" is a magical phrase. If no one has patented it yet, it's fair game - everything on a computer is novel to the patent office.
Not anymore since the US Supreme Court's verdict in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank.
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Speaking of "be good people", bold words from someone supporting microsoft. Mabey they should do their own stuff, not steal via lawsuits, and be good people.
Re:Nevertheless, Microsoft is doomed (Score:5, Interesting)
My company's position (it's not that large, only about a $2.5B company) is that patents are for defensive purposes. They don't seem to really think they could use them to keep the competition from copying one of our products. They're much more concerned that we can't develop products without infringing on somebody's patent and being vulnerable to being sued and they want to have a big collection of patents they could use to negotiate better licensing terms or stave off a suit.
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All large companies have the same IP strategy and they behave exactly the same simply because they can.
Sorry. Google, Motorola, Samsung, etc. have used patents purely in defensive mode. Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Erricsson etc. are the litigious bastards.
If these patents would be worthless, they wouldn't pay anything in the first place.
When these patenting agreements were drawn up, Android had a much smaller marketshare. So rather than getting caught up in litgation, some large Android makers chose to pay.
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And desktops and laptops last more than 8 to 12 years,
NOT in a corp environment, they don't! 2 or 3 yrs, tops. corps do a 'refresh' and buy new gear (cheaper than supporting older stuff).
and every company I've been at in the bay area, for the last 10 yrs at least, has mandated windows (sometimes giving mac a choice) but they NEVER run linux on the desktop. juniper ran freebsd on the desktop for its engineers (2000 timeframe) but that's the exception, not the rule.
corps keep paying the MS tax. happily,
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In my company, we have 3 colleges, a hospital and software teams that have been using the same PCs for over 6 years now. About 800 of them.
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Really? I'm glad that you have made it so clear that the Windows 98 machines that I see at work are not really there because the custom apps that would be difficult/impossible to be updated to more modern Windows are not a problem. The other machines that I see with Win XP clearly don't exist either only the very few Win 7 machines exist. Glad you cleared that up.
Re: Nevertheless, Microsoft is doomed (Score:1)
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desktops and laptops last more than 8 to 12 years
Desktops may. Laptops, not really. You run into problems with loss of battery life and gradually increasing general crankiness of the hardware. (The higher-powered a system is when first bought, the longer it lasts; low-ball it, and you're going to have to refresh sooner. And it's possible to replace some components in a desktop far more easily than in a laptop.)
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Plus you can use your pentium 4 laptop as a heater and hair dryer In a pinch. Take THAT modern laptops!
Re:Nevertheless, Microsoft is doomed (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry. Google, Motorola, Samsung, etc. have used patents purely in defensive mode. Apple, Microsoft, Oracle, Erricsson etc. are the litigious bastards.
Excuse me? Google/Motorola trying to extract four billion dollars out of Microsoft for some .mp3 patents? Samsung being told by the EU that they could face a fine up to $17 billion unless they stop trying to use their patents in anti-competitive ways?
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Google/Motorola trying to extract four billion dollars out of Microsoft for some .mp3 patents?
Nope. You are thinking of Alcatel/Lucent. And technically Alcatel/Lucent couldn't ask for a specific amount of money; the award was 1.5 billion dollars but could have been 4.5 billion dollars had the jury decided it was willful infringement.
Microsoft isn't an angel, but they do pay license fees on patents, and they were paid up on MP3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcatel-Lucent_v._Microsoft_Corp. [wikipedia.org]
Samsung being tol
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Have Google ever sued anyone that hasn't sued them first on patent issues? I don't think Google has, which would still make it purely defensive and not an aggressive patent troll like MS is.
Samsung isn't being told by the EU it faces a fine for using patents offensively and not defensively, it's being fined because it's being told it can't use those specific patents at all in court action because they're too fundamental to be allowed to do anything with them as compared to say, swipe to unlock. As such Sams
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Not all of them, Google only uses its patents when someone sue it.
Microsoft not only sues anyone they see as a competitor, but also is part of several patent-collective companies that sue left, right and centre.
In any case, it seems the company's "IP strategy" is to register as many patents as possible, regardless of validity or ingenuity involved in creating the concepts behind them, and then sue away. Fortunately since the Supreme Court ruled on Alice, these are being taken apart when they get to court.
H
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Really?
MS has a much wider product line than you imply. Using Skype perhaps?
True, but many of their products don't make money. MS Office is their cash cow and Windows OS is the field upon which the cash cow grazes.
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If these patents would be worthless, they wouldn't pay anything in the first place.
You don't read much, do you?
Patentes are paid because it's cheaper to pay them that to not. Once your business grow up enough, you see yourself paying to much that it starts to pay up fighting the patents.
It's just about value, nothing about worth.
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Only in the consumer world. In the far more lucrative corporate world no-one's going to be writing 500 page documents or huge spreadsheets on an iPad.
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Or even developing the web pages and apps you use on your iPad.
Of course, there's Macs and Linux (for now). But business prefers Windows. You avoid the Apple equipment-provider lock-in but get to use pretty much any software you want.
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There are two ways they might get out from under Microsoft patents:
1. Have those patents invalidated.
2. Develop alternatives to the technologies they're now licensing.
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The desktop that's never going away no matter how many idiots think it is. Until human eyes are comfortable reading tiny text and pecking away at 2" keyboards, tablets are NEVER going to replace desktops. Ever.
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Try using your fingers.
Re:Nevertheless, Microsoft is doomed (Score:5, Insightful)
But in a few years - say three at the max, Android makers will realise that these patents are really worthless, and back away from their agreements.
Once you sign an agreement, it doesn't really matter whether the patent is worthless or not - you've agreed to the payments contractually, and that's still legally binding. Samsung is attempting to use some clause in the contract to claim that Microsoft Corporation has done something to invalidate the agreement - that is, transforming to a company with a major smartphone manufacturing subdivision. Maybe that will work, I don't know.
The Penguin Who Roared (Score:1)
For all those preaching for a united Linux to face off against the gorilla, it is the diversity which has kept Linux alive.
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And what was it that gave Linux 0.5% of the desktop market?
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Zero marketing and support budget as well as miniscule oem support.
Desktop Linux will take off when a major oem creates a viable product with it.
Wilnot Pay Microsoft Royalties. (Score:1)
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Having not used a Microsoft product since DOS 6 upgrade, this is a reason I can not buy an android phone. However, I have a excellent Jolla phone so not a major problem. http://stevesstats.blogspot.co... [blogspot.co.uk]
Microsoft should sue Google if they believe they are being hard dun by, and not blackmail.
Why? Google's including Microsoft patented technologies in Android isn't a big deal to Microsoft because Google doesn't sell Android. It's the selling the using and the selling that's protected by patent law. Device manufacturers are selling it, so they need to license it. Google's also a seller, but they're small time in that regard, so less important to sue. And if they're paying their license fees or have cross-licensing agreements, all is well for Microsoft.
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Google doesn't sell Android
It did until it sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo.
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I believe that sale is not complete yet.
So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Patent for displaying multiple windows in a web browser"..... seriously.... how long was it before MS had a tabbed browser? If you're talking about multiple windows, NCSA Mosaic 2 did that before MSIE existed.
People need to stop the BS line of thinking that MS invented the modern computer and modern internet tech. They didn't. And most of their competitors offered superior products. MS achieved success by being sleazy politicians after making a bunch of money early on with MS DOS. Office wasn't even a success for over a decade and the only GUI versions of Excel and Word available were for the Mac for some time. And those were simply clones of other more established products and companies that would have been able to sue MS out of existence in this day and age.
Personally, I think patents should be non-transferable to prevent companies like MS and Google sucking up small companies just to have valid reasons to sue.
Big bucks to research.... HA.... that's entertaining. They spent so much cash to research the tech necessary for their "Triple Click" patent I'm sure.
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People need to stop the BS line that the title of a patent is a claim.
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It probably goes deeper than just the capability described in the patent's title. You can make a tabbed browser but the details of the look, feel and behaviour of the tabs can differ. Microsoft may have taken the NCSA Mosaic model, tweaked it and applied for a patent.
Two things here: Yes, this is a shit patent. Once someone comes up with the idea, minor changes in behavior are in most cases trivial design decisions. NCSA (or the people who designed the widget set) chose one way of doing things. So Microsof
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I don't know.... I really don't believe in software patents in any way shape or form. Hardware and actual physical tangible inventions? Yes. Software? No. That's like patenting a book or creative work IMHO. Copyright should apply but patents? No. The whole concept is retarded and significantly slows actual innovation and progress. Imaginary property is stupid. End of story. Things like this are often used to abuse smaller players rather than big rivals and only bolsters aggressive, rich megacorps
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IANAL, but it's my understanding that in the legal world, patent trolls are typically referred to as NPEs—non-practicing entities—because while they may hold a patent, they never do anything with it other than sue people. I haven't looked at the patents in question here, and I certainly can't speak to their validity (let's assume for the sake of argument that they're valid), but as much as I may dislike the company in general, I have to admit that Microsoft does make a lot of stuff and has done
Samsung should just work to invalidate them... (Score:3, Interesting)
The "patents" have been revealed in recent times and are not very good quality, esp. in light of the in re Bilsky decision by the Supreme Court. Quite simply put, they're paying danegeld to Microsoft in exchange for avoiding a costly litigation- the thing is...now they're in one anyhow. So they should man up and butt heads with Microsoft and do in this extortion bullshit once and for all.
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Agreed but as I understand it it's possible that the agreement stands regardless of the validity of the patents, so if their agreement with Microsoft is such that they're paying for these patents regardless of validity then there's no point them focussing on invalidating the patents, hence why I suspect they've instead decided to try and invalidate their agreement by arguing that Microsoft is now a smartphone manufacturer where it wasn't before- just as Microsoft managed to argue that payments should be mad
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Is it worth it in the case of the vFAT/FAT32 patents? They must be due for expiry any time now. Windows 95 is nearly 20 years old. On the other hand I would want to try and get any patents on exFAT invalidated because they still have a long time to run.
Even the MP3 patents are expiring real soon now, if they are not already expired in your jurisdiction.
MS losing money? (Score:5, Interesting)
I also think that this has nothing to do with MS or the royalties to MS. I think it has to do with Apple. Samsung, for some reason, gave MS a sweetheart deal on the thinnest of evidence. Samsung did not go to court, wait for google, but just paid MS a reletively large amount of cash for every handset sold. This tells me that there was so backroom negotiations going on, possible lawfully questionable negotiations. This, probably, is negatively effecting the Apple situation because if they were so eager to give MS money, why are they fighting Apple on claims that are at least as good? Which means that whatever possible underhanded deal Samsung made with MS is no longer paying off.
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the reason that MS continues to make a phone
Microsoft makes a phone? I have not seen one in the wild. Maybe they're just pretending to make a phone so they can ship billions of dollars to tax havens off-shore?
Okay, yes, Microsoft is still in the phone market - but the tax dodge is very real, as is the lack of sales.
Lawyers (Score:1)
Our phones would cost half as much if not for them.
Eventually there will be no tecnology (Score:1)
Only patent holders suing everyone for the right to never produce anything.
Koreans are butthurt (Score:1)
"late last year Samsung decided it was tired of paying on time, or paying interest when a late payment was finally made."
Microsoft own Nokia now which interfaces with their precious Samsung offering Windows phone. I've seen the same pettiness from their popular mobile messenger application - Kakao Talk. It now doesn't get updated on Windows Mobile.
Maybe Microsoft should just throw their shit country overboard. It's a country completely run on pirate versions of Windows in academia, government and the home.
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I was a bit harsh there but really it's lame. Samsung should pay their way like we all have to, and so should all Korean companies or anyone who violates licences, copyright and patents en masse. That's all. Pay up...
It's fair and better for Korea in the long run if they have a good figure on how sustainable their businesses are financially in the even they do somehow have to pay for what they use.