Published: 8/3/15
Publication: PatentlyO
In a well written decision, the 9th Circuit has affirmed the lower court ruling that Motorola/Google owes $14 million to Microsoft for failing to live-up to its RAND commitments. Although Motorola (now Google) committed several WiFi-essential patents to Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory (RAND) licensing, it later demanded that Microsoft pay a hefty royalty rate lest it be blocked from using WiFi. Those demands from Motorola should more properly be seen as a counter-offensive prompted by Microsoft’s demands for royalties on every Android implementation.