Microsoft has tied Acer and Viewsonic into royalty-paying patent deals, a continuation of its longstanding Android strategy.
Microsoft is continuing its campaign of tying Android device
manufacturers into licensing agreements, this time nabbing two significant
prizes: Acer and Viewsonic.
The agreement between Microsoft and Viewsonic stipulates the
latter will pay royalties for its tablets and mobile phones running Google
Android or Chrome. The one with Acer stipulates payments for tablets and
smartphones running Android. No exact financial terms were disclosed by
Microsoft.
"We are pleased that Acer is taking advantage of our
industrywide licensing program established to help companies address Android's
IP issues," Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general
counsel of intellectual property and licensing
at Microsoft, wrote in a Sept.
8 statement. "This agreement is an example of how industry leaders can
reach commercially reasonable arrangements that address intellectual property."
Microsoft has made no secret of its willingness to sue those
Android device manufacturers who refuse to enter into a royalty agreement. Both
Motorola and Barnes & Noble chose to fight out their respective battles in
court rather than submit.
"Microsoft is misusing these patents as part of a scheme to try
to eliminate or marginalize the competition to its own Windows Phone 7 mobile
device operating system posted by the open-source Android operating system and
other open source operating systems," read Barnes & Noble's counterclaim to
Microsoft's lawsuit, filed April 25 with the U.S. District Court for the
Western District of Washington at Seattle. "Microsoft's conduct directly harms
both competition for and consumers of eReaders, smartphones, tablet computers,
and other mobile electronic devices, and renders Microsoft's patents
unenforceable."
The bookseller's filing also mentioned that both HTC and
Amazon had entered into patent-licensing deals with Redmond. Throughout 2011,
Microsoft entered into agreements with a variety of smaller Android manufacturers,
including Onkyo, Velocity Micro and General Dynamics Itronix.
Microsoft claims the Android platform infringes on a number
of its patents. The interesting twist in the latest agreements is Microsoft's
citing of Chrome as violating its intellectual property. Whether or not that
represents a harbinger of a more widespread attack against Google's software
and assets remains to be seen.
Google recently acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.5
billion. Whether that will give the search engine
giant the intellectual property cover it
needs to more effectively defend its smartphone platform is also an open
question. Meanwhile, Microsoft will almost certainly continue to pursue its own
aggressive strategy with regard to Android.
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Nicholas Kolakowski on Twitter
Nicholas Kolakowski is a staff editor at eWEEK, covering Microsoft and other companies in the enterprise space, as well as evolving technology such as tablet PCs. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Playboy, WebMD, AARP the Magazine, AutoWeek, Washington City Paper, Trader Monthly, and Private Air. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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