HTC Pays Microsoft $5 Per Android Phone, Says Citi

[Southern Patriot]

They patent every idea (even if it was never made into a product or software) in very very vague terms because patent systems allows them, then they apply for patent and then they wait.

Have you ever actually read a patent beyond the title (which is admittedly sometimes vague, as shown in Flawed's post above)? They are usually VERY specific as to what they cover.

[Neo003]

I don?t' see anything wrong with the patent system, you make something (or don't) and you patent it on time. It's your property and is someone uses you've every right to get you fair share.

[HSoft]

You see, Microsoft is incapable of competing fairly.. The sooner It goes away the better for everyone in my opinion.

And if MS goes away what are we all going to use on our desktops, laptops etc? Linux is fairly crap as a desktop OS. Apple has a decent OS (although personally I much prefer Win7) but they definately hold a monopoly in that regard and are worse than MS.

Some of Microsofts products aren't very good in the slightest, others are the best there are (Office, Visual Studio etc). On the whole Microsoft has more positives than negatives

[Southern Patriot]

Those are some real unique and innovative ideas wouldn't you agree? If this isn't patent trolling I don't know what is.

Those are patent titles, not the full text of the patent. If you were to actually read any of them, you'd see that they are very specific as to what they cover.

[HSoft]

Have you ever actually read a patent beyond the title (which is admittedly sometimes vague, as shown in Flawed's post above)? They are usually VERY specific as to what they cover.

Yes some are but on the other hand some aren't. The general trend over the last few years is to try and make patents more vague so that they potentially cover more applications of the base idea. Sometimes however people/companies make them too vague and they are rejected by the patent office.

[BajiRav]

Yep it did. But then it settled with the usual NDA so HTC can't discuss how Microsoft is pricing the fees just right so that Android appears more expensive than WM7 (The Microsoft Tax). These are dirty tactics not intended to protect IP, but to disadvantage the competition through patent trolling. This is how big business maintains its hegemony these days, not through superior products or innovation, but through the application of Government issued monopolies (patents).

source? AFAIK, HTC started as a big WinMo OEM so they were licensing even before Android was nothing but a flash in Andy Rubin's brains.

[DukeEsquire]

Microsoft is suing Android manufacturers with dubious patents such as "Method for the storage of long/short file names" aka the FAT patent. Microsoft loves to bring that one out against every (yes every) Linux based OS. And others from Microsoft's patent lawsuit against Barnes and Noble:

Those are some real unique and innovative ideas wouldn't you agree? If this isn't patent trolling I don't know what is.

Really? What about Oracle? Although much maligned, at the least, it does go directly to the source instead of waging a campaign against OEM's deploying it with the intention of discouraging them from promoting/selling Android, and making more devices in the future. Absolutely disgusting. This reveals the real Microsoft. Has it changed since the 90's? No. Although it's becoming less and less relevant as evidenced by the SCO behaviour.

And that's precisely what Microsoft wants. It wants OEMS's to stop producing Android phones and give it a sole monopoly like OEM's do in the desktop OS market. This is the only mentality Microsoft can operate on. Destroy by any means, whether it be by hook, or by crook, and in this case, it's mostly crook. Sue under the guise of protecting IP, all the while, giving your own product a cost advantage.

You see, Microsoft is incapable of competing fairly.. The sooner It goes away the better for everyone in my opinion.

Question:

Before you call a patent "vague" have you ever read a patent?

For example, the one you mocked: " Remote Retrieval and Display Management of Electronic Document with Incorporated Images." It is 17 pages of diagrams and tiny font.

You are, quite literally, judging a book by its cover.

http://www.google.com/patents?id=deQCAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&source=gbs_overview_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

[BajiRav]

Question:

Before you call a patent "vague" have you ever read a patent?

For example, the one you mocked: " Remote Retrieval and Display Management of Electronic Document with Incorporated Images." It is 17 pages of diagrams and tiny font.

You are, quite literally, judging a book by its cover.

http://www.google.com/patents?id=deQCAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&source=gbs_overview_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Also doesn't "patent troll" usually apply to companies who patent random things but never make products based on them? It sounds like this patent covers either IE or Office or possibly all of MS products. If true, this doesn't make a patent troll.

[LaP]

I don?t' see anything wrong with the patent system, you make something (or don't) and you patent it on time. It's your property and is someone uses you've every right to get you fair share.

It's more often (you don't) than you make something.

To patent something you should be required to have a clear idea of what you are going to make (or not) and imo you should be required to make a working prototype in a reasonable timeframe to prove it's possible to do it right now and not in 20 years from now. But that last part is my opinion only.

Patenting general ideas like "the ability to send voice over a cable" is just silly specially when the technology doesn't permit?it. And there's lot of patent like this. General ideas Joe Blow though about but nobody did it cause the technology was not there.

Some vague patents are rejected but too much get a free pass these days. It's not all patents most of them are very specific though. But we see more and more patent trolls these days. We don't know about this case because MS and HTC did not disclose anything about the agreement.

[revvo]

The patent system definately needs an overhaul. The sooner the better.

The US patent office is a joke.

[LaP]

The US patent office is a joke.

Yeah you are right the system itself is good.

[BajiRav]

It's more often (you don't) than you make something.

To patent something you should be required to have a clear idea of what you are going to make and should be required to make a working prototype in a reasonable timeframe.

Patenting general ideas like "the ability to send voice over a cable" is just silly specially when the technology doesn't permit?it. And there's lot of patent like this. General ideas Joe Blow though about but nobody did it cause the technology was not there.

Some vague patents are rejected by too much get a free pass these days.

Many big corporations including Microsoft, Google and Apple have been actually pushing for patent reform. All of them spend big money especially Microsoft for defending their products against patent trolls.

[DukeEsquire]

Also doesn't "patent troll" usually apply to companies who patent random things but never make products based on them? It sounds like this patent covers either IE or Office or possibly all of MS products. If true, this doesn't make a patent troll.

Every company patents stuff that they don't current manufacture because it's just smart business. Inventors come up with stuff all the time that the company doesn't want to pursuit right now. Maybe the company doesn't have the money to produce it or the technology hasn't been refined yet or it's not ready for the consumer market. However, why should the company should patent it? They spend real money developing it. Just because it's not fully refined right now doesn't mean they should have the right to produce it when its ready.

For example:

My dad worked for a car company and invented all kinds of stuff and holds a number of patents. A long time ago, he invented a new side-curtain airbag system. At the time, car manufacturers weren't ready to install side-curtain airbags because there just wasn't consumer demand for it. So, for a number of years, it just sat there. However, as consumer demand has picked up, his company started producing it.

[alexalex]

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/microsoft-to-license-not-sue-htc-20100429-ttzo.html

MS did not sue them because they made an agreement.

Part of the "agreement" (I would have called it by another name) was probably HTC agreeing to manufacture WP7 phones. Motorola

didn't, and they are sued.

[Southern Patriot]

Part of the "agreement" (I would have called it by another name) was probably HTC agreeing to manufacture WP7 phones. Motorola

didn't, and they are sued.

HTC has made Windows Mobile phones since basically forever. There is no reason to believe that they wouldn't have continued making WP7 phones even without this agreement. Motorola, unless I'm mistaken, has until very recently only ever used their own software on phones, and never made any Windows based phones. That changed with the Droid.

[XIII]

Yeah, and Google, Apple are better ? HTC is not that good of a company, they are famous for the HD2 fiasco together with MS. To rub salt to the wounds, they even release an HD2-clone (HD7) to rip us off. I don't there are purely good companies out there in general. They have to be necessarily evil to survive the competitions. The only ones losing in these fierce competitions are us, the consumers. We pay higher prices for crappier hardware. The last couple revisions from HTC have been pretty mediocre in my opinion (cheap LCD, poor built-quality, etc...)

[BajiRav]

HTC has made Windows Mobile phones since basically forever. There is no reason to believe that they wouldn't have continued making WP7 phones even without this agreement. Motorola, unless I'm mistaken, has until very recently only ever used their own software on phones, and never made any Windows based phones. That changed with the Droid.

I am pretty sure, motorola had some WinMo phones back in the day.

[thenotavenger]

And if MS goes away what are we all going to use on our desktops, laptops etc? Linux is fairly crap as a desktop OS.

Yes, if MS disappeared and the whole world had to use Linux, we'd all just sit there and not improve Linux.

[DukeEsquire]

Yeah, and Google, Apple are better ? HTC is not that good of a company, they are famous for the HD2 fiasco together with MS. To rub salt to the wounds, they even release an HD2-clone (HD7) to rip us off. I don't there are purely good companies out there in general. They have to be necessarily evil to survive the competitions. The only ones losing in these fierce competitions are us, the consumers. We pay higher prices for crappier hardware. The last couple revisions from HTC have been pretty mediocre in my opinion (cheap LCD, poor built-quality, etc...)

What are you talking about? Higher prices for crappier hardware?

I remember paying $300 with a 2 year contract for my HTC Wizard in 2005. It had a 195 Mhz processor and 64 MB of ram. I remember overclocking that little guy to play games.

Here's my advice: quit your whining. I don't remember a time where we've had so many choices in high quality products. The consumers are winning and if you disagree, take a peek at what phones people were using just a few years ago and tell me today's phones are poorer quality.

[Ci7]

You see, Microsoft is incapable of competing fairly.. The sooner It goes away the better for everyone in my opinion.

your claims match well with your username :whistle: :rolleyes:

[Aethec]

The US patent office is a joke.

It isn't. Jokes are supposed to be funny. The US patent office would be funny if it wasn't serious.

[Flawed]

Question:

Before you call a patent "vague" have you ever read a patent?

For example, the one you mocked: " Remote Retrieval and Display Management of Electronic Document with Incorporated Images." It is 17 pages of diagrams and tiny font.

You are, quite literally, judging a book by its cover.

http://www.google.com/patents?id=deQCAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&source=gbs_overview_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

I did take a cursory look at the patents in question beforehand, and I came to the same conclusions. For instance, the abstract (not the title) for the patent you linked to is as follows:

A browser remotely retrieves electronic documents from a remote computer network for viewing by a user. For enhancing responsiveness, the browser initially displays an electronic document without a background image so that the electronic document is initially displayed more quickly. The browser also prioritizes downloading of embedded images of the document by their incorporation in the currently visible portion of the electronic document. Further, the browser dynamically creates additional connections for retrieving resources incorporated into the electronic document from the remote computer network.

If you ignore the superfluous decision trees/flow charts, then you have a vague, generalised way of downloading/rendering a web page. The optimisations denoted are both manifest to any web programmer, and standard practise in most modern web browsers. Why doesn't Microsoft sue Google, Mozilla, Opera, Apple, the teams behind Konqueror, Epiphany, etc? They all use similar optimisations in their browsers. I'll tell you why, it's because Android is a threat. If it was merely an issue of protecting IP, then why doesn't Microsoft sue the aforementioned companies?

[XIII]

What are you talking about? Higher prices for crappier hardware?

I remember paying $300 with a 2 year contract for my HTC Wizard in 2005. It had a 195 Mhz processor and 64 MB of ram. I remember overclocking that little guy to play games.

Here's my advice: quit your whining. I don't remember a time where we've had so many choices in high quality products. The consumers are winning and if you disagree, take a peek at what phones people were using just a few years ago and tell me today's phones are poorer quality.

Are you literally out of your mind ? We get better phones, better hardware now because of technological progress, not because of companies doing it voluntarily. You are still using the same old 1GB Snapdragon processor that has been released like 3-4 years ago, yet you are still paying the same price as my HD2. How is it high quality when most phones released by HTC recently are made from plastic and the LCD used in their phones are simply horrendous (washed out, bad viewing angles, etc ...) ? Even my HD2 released 3 years ago can do better than that (the back is made from magnesium alloy, LCD is better than HD7 and Desire for that matter, physical buttons, etc...).

[guru]

Are you literally out of your mind ? We get better phones, better hardware now because of technological progress, not because of companies doing it voluntarily. You are still using the same old 1GB Snapdragon processor that has been released like 3-4 years ago, yet you are still paying the same price as my HD2. How is it high quality when most phones released by HTC recently are made from plastic and the LCD used in their phones are simply horrendous (washed out, bad viewing angles, etc ...) ? Even my HD2 released 3 years ago can do better than that (the back is made from magnesium alloy, LCD is better than HD7 and Desire for that matter, physical buttons, etc...).

didnt know technological progress dropped from the sky? :rolleyes: or may be its by businesses in competition from companies that have licensed ARM are in competition to make and sell more arm socs and phones than their competition.

[XIII]

Check your facts, most of those technologies used in cell phones, and electronics come from the lab, universities, not from companies. Those companies just buy these research applications from research lab. For example, Qualcomms was actually founded by a professor in UCSD, it has nothing to do with HTC, nor MS.