Microsoft adds two more Android tablet makers to its patent-licensing list
Summary: Add Aluratek and Coby Electronics to the list of Android and Chrome OS tablet/PC makers who are paying MIcrosoft patent royalties.
Microsoft has added yet two more companies with Android- and Chrome OS-based products to its patent-licensing list.
The latest additions, which Microsoft announced on July 9, are Aluratek and Coby Electronics. Microsoft officials said as of today's latest signees, "Microsoft has licensed more than 70 percent of all U.S. Android devices."
As part of today's deals, Microsoft will be receiving undisclosed royalty payments from both vendors.
Aluratek makes Android-based tablets, e-book readers, digital picture frames and other consumer electronics devices. Coby makes Android-based tablets and netbooks, TVS, and other consumer electronics devices.
Microsoft's claim is that Android and Chrome OS violate publicly-unspecified Microsoft patents and companies that are choosing to build products around these Google operating systems are making a risky bet.
Microsoft has convinced a number of Android and Linux-based device makers that it's better and cheaper to pay than fight. Among those companies with Android- and Linux-based devices that have capitulated are Amazon, Buffalo, Compal, General Dynamics, HTC, LG Electronics, Samsung, TomTom, Velocity Micro and others.
Barnes & Noble was a holdout, refusing to sign a patent deal with Microsoft, but a coule of months ago, opted to settle and sign with Microsoft. Microsoft invested $300 million in a new joint venture with B&N as part of that settlement.
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Talkback
Interesting
Yes, Motorola
WOW dagamer
Let's hope the DOJ investigates this blackmail
Coby Electronics! King of the bottom-feeding hardware!
And an easy one for the comment troll to repeat his bile
Why should I?
But if you want to, you can go ahead and pray for me. Pray that I won't be 'sad' anymore.
lol...
Not a patent troll...
Microsoft actually uses the patents themselves.
You might not like that they have a right to income for their patents, but that doesn't make them patent trolls.
When they use it as a form of legal fee extortion
Like when Apple sues Samsung. There's another example.
it seem that
Wow
Wow
Wow
Microsoft adds two more Android tablet makers to its patent-licensing list
Another Stellar Contribution
And who is this Linux, any way?
And the scary question for the Microsoft advocate is what is the ratio of mobile licensing fees collected by Microsoft for its os vs. coerced Android fees? And is the r&d money more effectively spent in engineering or legal?
isn't Coby or Aluratek who are paying Microsoft, it's the consumer
Considering the ridiculous standard of the patents concerned, this is just another rich guys rip off the poor guys situation. It doesn't make the US stronger against China, it makes the US weaker, because the US is all the millions of ordinary guys trying to make a living as everything gets more expensive and their wages get smaller, not suits at Microsoft, they add nothing.
This situation with the USPTO does nothing to drive forward innovation, all it does is serve the rich to get richer, and poorer to get poorer. Not fair, not sane and definitely not right.
Patent creation does drive innovation forward, and creates million of jobs,
Innovation that is turned into products (and services), will also be creating millions of jobs, and so, what you perceive as an evil, is actually a godsend for the innovative and the many millions of people who benefit through jobs, and the use of the products and services created.
A lot of assumptions my friend
Funny thing those jobs. You get 50 high level lawyers to get you patents, few gearheads to identify things worth patenting and then all the rest is done in ChIndia. Godsend, yes. For the CEOs that is.
No assumptions at all. And, there are still many little guys and little
Without patents, chances are that, even the PCs and Macs and smartphones, wouldn't exist, and neither would the many millions of jobs that resulted from those patents which protect the innovators. We might still be with 1800s technology if it weren't for patents.
Re; godsend for the innovative and the many millions of people who benefit
Lawyers benefit. They want more of it.
Innovators lose. They do NOT want any of it.