Microsoft Corp., the world’s biggest software maker, is demanding patent royalties from mobile-phone makers that use Google Inc.’s Android operating system.
HTC Corp., which can make Google’s Nexus One mobile phone, has agreed to spend under a patent licensing agreement, Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft explained in a statement right now not having disclosing the quantity. Motorola Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. also make cell devices that use Android.
Microsoft has been talking “with a number of device makers to address our concerns relative to the Android cellular platform,” Horacio Gutierrez, the company’s deputy common counsel for intellectual property and licensing, mentioned in an e-mailed statement without having naming the firms involved.
Google, owner of the world’s most well-known search engine, offers Android for totally free to handset companies, and seeks to make cash instead from marketing advertising tied to Android users’ searches and application uses. Microsoft’s demands expand the legal problems around Android and raise the possibility of a lot more companies looking for royalties, stated Michael Gartenberg, a partner at research firm Altimeter Group.
“The message is so not subtle — Android is just not cost-free and not merely is not any cost, it can commence being really pricey more than time,” Gartenberg mentioned. “The irony on the truth is that for every single HTC Android cellular phone that ships, Microsoft will get a check.”
Dealing with Microsoft
Rob Enderle, principal analyst for the Enderle Group in San Jose, California, estimates that HTC and most other handset producers would need to pay Microsoft $20 to $40 per phone to license the intellectual property required for Android.
Unless Google somehow figures out the way to ax this cost, “Android is heading to fall off as a high-priced and risky platform,” he mentioned. “Nobody wants to deal with Microsoft.”
Apple Inc. currently has a patent-infringement complaint pending in opposition to HTC more than phones that run on Android. Research In Motion Ltd., Nokia Oyj and Palm Inc. are among the device makers that might claim to have patent rights to Android, Gartenberg explained.
HTC, dependent in Taoyuan, Taiwan, also makes phones that run on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating process.
Anthony House, a spokesman for Mountain View, California- centered Google, mentioned the company isn’t prepared to comment on the matter.
Apple Scenario
Apple, maker on the iPhone, is looking for to block U.S. imports of HTC phones that run on Android. That situation is pending before the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington.
In a very March 15 blog posting, Gutierrez proclaimed the Apple event is proof that the mobile cell phone business “is inside practice of sorting out what royalties will be” for that software program that adds the functions such as Internet access and downloading capabilities.
He explained Microsoft has “consistently taken a proactive method to licensing.” The company, which is typically defending itself in opposition to four dozen patent-infringement suits at any provided time, isn’t recognized for filing lawsuits over its personal patents. Since 2007, the company has filed two patent lawsuits in opposition to firms that didn’t see it initial.