Microsoft Signs Android Patent Deal With LG, VP Taunts Google
Patent wars over smartphones, especially over the last several years, have been at an all time high. Microsoft announced that they signed a patent-licensing deal with LG, a number two maker of smartphones.
As much as Google would want Microsoft out of the World of patents, the Washington based company holds the patents to certain technologies used in Android smartphones on the market.
Last year, Google bought Motorola Mobility for $12.5 Billion which also granted them their arsenal of 24,000 mobile related patents. Not to mention they also acquired 217 patents from IBM.
“Microsoft signed the patent agreement with LG, the second largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world, according to ComScore’s latest analysis of the market. Microsoft has already signed a licensing agreement with the No. 1 mobile phone manufacturer, Samsung, and nine other companies, from which they receive a cut of every Android-based device sold.”
Smartphones are a blazing hot sector and being that it is a very popular technology, disputes over patents and companies inking deals with other companies who have patents, are bound to happen.
The fact is, without companies such as LG signing a licensing agreement, they risk the chance of being sued by supposed patent holders. Microsoft’s patent deal with HTC nets them about $5 for each phone that the company makes, though it wasn’t disclosed how much they will be making from LG.
The deal lead the VP of corporate communications at Microsoft to taunt Google via Twitter:
“Hey Google — we are the 70%,” Frank Shaw, Microsoft’s vice president of corporate communications tweeted, referencing Microsoft’s assertion that it now has deals on 70 percent or more of the Android smartphones sold. Shaw later posted on Twitter, “Can we just agree to drop the patents-as-weapons meme? When effective licensing enables companies to share IP, the metaphor falls apart.”
