Aluratek, Coby license Microsoft patents for Android Two more makers of Android-powered devices have signed patent-licensing agreements with Microsoft, proving yet again that Windows Phone doesn't need to match Android's sales for Microsoft to eat part of its lunch. The two latest companies to ink deals with Redmond are Aluratek and Coby Electronics, both of which manufacture …
There's two problems to that logic:
1) As Android user base so does it's clout to move further outside of Microsoft patents (e.g. filesystems)
2) Utility patents only last 20 years, so it's never going to be a long term plan for Microsoft. Many of their patents are probably getting close to that already.
It works with a visit to Littlecorp by Bigcorp's lawyers. Bigcorp shows Littlecorp half a dozen dodgy patents they claim Littlecorp are using. Littlecorp look at them and say these patents are invalid. Bigcorp then says, "so what, you'll be bankrupt by the time you've proved they are, and if you aren't then we'll find a few more patents and start again with those". Littlecorp licenses the patents and agrees not to disclose the terms or which patents are licensed, or they have to pay twice as much. You only get to find out which patents are being used if Littlecorp has deep enough pockets to fight.
All the larger corps have patents of their own, and agree to cross license.
I'd be interested to know to what extent this affects prices of goods in UK/EU markets where fewer patents are allowed and software as such isn't patentable.
Google is trying to overthrow the idea that "those who do the research should be able to benefit from it".
This makes sense - their entire business model isn't about *creating* stuff - but sitting on top of the creations of others (web pages / videos and so on) and taking a few pennies.
In a trade sense "Android is dumping" - it's taking the research that others have done, repackaging it, and then giving it away free so that the suckers who performed the research in the first place take a loss.
It's exactly the same as "I spend 5 years coming up with X" - Google does nothing except copy X and give it away for free to make sure that I take a loss on that 5 years I spent coming up with X. It's parasitic behavior and Google is the ultimate parasite.
It's always been cheaper to copy than create. The question these days is *why bother creating* when the rewards seem to be higher for those that simply copy?
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