One of the largest makers of Android phones and tablets, Samsung has entered into a patent licensing agreement with Microsoft, thus paying up a royalty for every Android device it sells. The cross licensing allows Samsung to continue doing business with Android, Microsoft proudly mentions Windows Phone Mango devices from Samsung.
Google has been fighting patent allegations against its Android operating system since long, Oracle is suing Android for billions and almost all Android manufactures are under numerous lawsuits. Google has tried its best to strengthen its patent portfolio by buying patents from IBM and also buying out Motorola. While we wait to see how much protection Google can give to its Android partners with these tactics, Samsung has settled with Microsoft, perhaps it would use Google’s help for the fight against Apple.
Smartphone Patent Wars
While we aren’t exceptionally keen on tracking every country and every court where one of these smartphone makers are suing each other, patent war is a reality. Apple, Samsung, Motorola, Google, Oracle, HTC, Nokia and several others are fighting it out, and it is marvelous to see some settlements happening. Nokia and Apple settled their patent suits sometime back, and HTC is already paying Microsoft for every Android device sold, today Samsung is added to the list and that means more than half of Android devices sold in United States are now bringing in revenues for Redmond.
