Published: 4/9/15
Publication: FOSS Patents
More than 4½ years after Microsoft sued Motorola for not renewing a license agreement (a renewal that would likely have been costly after Motorola stopped making Windows devices), Motorola still hasn’t paid Microsoft a dime in patent royalties on its Android devices, and for now there’s no reason to assume that Motorola will come under serious legal pressure in the near term to do so. What Microsoft may, however, receive before or around the 5th anniversary of the dispute is a check over $14.5 million–not in Android patent license fees, but in damages for Motorola’s abuse of its (own) standard-essential patents. This would effectively increase Google’s cost of acquiring Motorola by slightly more than 0.1%. This amount is certainly much less than whatever Google spent on legal fees related to Motorola’s spats with Apple (where a ceasefire was agreed upon almost a year ago, with the exception of Google’s continuing fight against the European rubberbanding patent) and Microsoft. I’m sure (though I don’t know what Microsoft demanded from Motorola in 2010) it’s also a tiny fraction of what Microsoft would have wanted Motorola to pay in royalties.