HTC pays Microsoft $5 for each Android phone it sells

http://thenextweb.com/microsoft/2011/05/27/htc-pays-microsoft-5-for-each-android-phone-it-sells/

by tilt • 15 years ago

39 12 15 years ago

thenextweb.com

rbanffy4• 15 years ago

Patent extortion is a valid business model.

lhnz• 15 years ago

Probably dependent on whether you have enough money to scare people from getting into a legal battle with you.

rbanffy4• 15 years ago

It's not that difficult to finance a small war like this.

You start settling for little money and use this money to fight the next target and go, from target to target.

It's little comfort for Android developers that Lodsys uses money it got from Apple to threaten them.

Yhippa• 15 years ago

I agree. Do you think that there was once a time in place for patents or that we still need them? The concept of "owning" ideas is really weird to me.

rbanffy4• 15 years ago

I am not completely against patents. Not even software patents, as a principle. What I am against is bad patents - patents on obvious ideas or ideas anyone could come up with in a couple minutes.

Patents should be hard to earn.

garyrichardson• 15 years ago

So do they make more on HTC Android phones or Nokia Windows Phones?

stuartjmoore• 15 years ago

The math says more on Android than Windows Phone 7: http://www.asymco.com/2011/05/27/microsoft-has-received-five...

metamatt• 15 years ago

Who knows how much they will make on Nokia Windows phones, but right now they're making $0 from them since there aren't any yet.

martingordon• 15 years ago

Not only does Microsoft make more on Android than Windows Phone, they probably make more per Android phone than Google does.

zandorg• 15 years ago

My guess is the patent on the FAT file system.

rbanffy4• 15 years ago

How hard would it be to make an ext4 filesystem driver for Windows? Would licensing allow that?

mvalle• 15 years ago

I have long believed that the FSF or SFLC should provide free or lowcost insurance against patent lawsuits where free software is involved. That way companies, like HTC, could more comfortably, and with less associated risk, deny paying for these kinds of patent rackets.

The FSF and SFLC would have the expsrtise of fighting the case, and would probably get the resources to do it too.

HTC pays Microsoft $5 for each Android phone it sells

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