Judge: Microsoft Phones Infringe Patents

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It looks like Microsoft might have a little patent trouble on its hands again.

The judge, Theodore Essex, said that Microsoft infringed two wireless cellular patents owned by InterDigital, a patent licensor, and said it would not be against the public interest to ban the Microsoft devices from import into the United States. The judge's decision must be reviewed by the full commission before any import ban is enacted.
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Probably something stupid... it seems to rarely ever be anything inventive. At least not the ones I see.... but I don't look these things up either.
 
The patents are pretty straight-forward, and relate to establishing power in wireless handshaking. Whether it should have been granted in the first place is iffy, and there are several other similar patents also being used by trolls right now. The idea isn't novel.

lol, InterDigital must have won on appeal after MS and ZTE prevailed back in August: http://www.cnet.com/news/microsoft-zte-prevail-in-patent-case-with-interdigital/
 
It's also worth noting that Microsoft "acquired" this lawsuit as a result of buying up parts of Nokia. This lawsuit has been ongoing for many years, originally against Nokia.
 
How much have they gotten by suing, or threatening, for their supposed Android patents?
 
Ur_Mom said:
How much have they gotten by suing, or threatening, for their supposed Android patents?
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Last year MS was making about $3.5 billion a year on licensing patents to Android device makers. It's probably higher now with at least 1 major patent licensing deal announced a few weeks ago. The potential licensing revenue is around $8-$9 billion a year with Android device sales growth and a few more device makers signing on.

Even if MS/Nokia has to pay, it's unlikely to be a very big fine in the scheme of things.
 
At least once Google buys up all the patents we won't need to worry about this anymore :D
 
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