HTC Pays Microsoft $5 Per Android Phone, Says Citi

[guru]

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.

if you look at it that way, you could also add to your list, the scientists for Quantum mechanics at play in flash memory used everywhere these days. HTC and MS or even Google or Apple for that matter have their own research teams that drive technological progress and adoption.

MS Research for example has tonnes of technology sitting out there (i've seen some of them first hand.) that their product teams and management simply dont have the vision or the will to implement.

[Flawed]

There is a simple solution to this - Only buy Android devices from companies that refuse to pay Microsoft's protection money (Microsoft Tax). That includes Barnes and Noble, and Motorola.

If you buy HTC, you are effectively funding Microsoft.

[andrew_f]

If you buy HTC, you are effectively funding Microsoft.

That is the most pathetic thing I've read here for a long time. They aren't some drug syndicate - they're a business, and one which has done more for longer than Google or Apple in this field, hence their patent pool.

[Subject Delta]

Microsoft and Apple sure know how to make the most out of the terrible US patent system. WP7 is a crap platform that is tanking, so they go after Android manufacturers instead. The kind of things that can be patented in the US, simply shouldn't be.

[XIII]

Funny how we cry fouls at Apple for patent trolling when we left out the biggest troll of all time: MS. Karma is a bitch anyway. Most of the money MS earned from patent trolling usually go into EU's pocket and who know, they might be trolled one of these days by their best student: Apple.

[theh0g]

If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em. Microsoft has hitherto been unable to leverage its desktop OS monopoly advantage, so it needed to find a new way of putting the competition at a disadvantage. For we all know, given its history, that without such tactics, Microsoft can never succeed.

It's sad when a product (WM7) can't stand on its own merits, and can only compete by forcing the "Microsoft Tax" on competitors. But we all know by now, Microsoft wins by hook - OOXML: we're open really!, or by crook - Bing stealing search results from Google, forcing the "Microsoft Tax" on competitors in order to make your product seem more attractive, and corrupting the ISO process to get a proprietary locked down format standardised.

Amen!

[Boz]

Every company patents stuff that they don't current manufacture because it's just smart business.

No..and that's the problem. I can come up with the next facebook and ideas I have are pretty unique but I shouldn't be able to patent it because I haven't made a product. So many ideas are out there but what it should count it who makes the product.

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.

Unless you have a prototype of a product to prove that you have implemented that idea, you shouldn't be able to claim it's yours. Whether or not you have money is completely different thing. If you don't, well tough sh*t, someone else will have money and will make it.

I'm not sure you follow what's inherently wrong with this.

I could say, hey I'm going to patent a flying car and I have very good idea how that car might fly now, but I can't make it.. So I'm gonna patent it, so when someone else who actually knows how to make this stuff and will have resources goes to make the flying car, I'll just go and sue them. That's the classic definition of patent trolling we see today.

You should be only allowed to patent things that you have developed (prototype or commercial) and proved that your patent works. If not, well sorry.. that's how life is. You don't get to "reserve" your ideas for future without proving it works and that it's your idea. It's like proof of ownership if you will.