What’s that about? I’ve obviously missed that particular nugget, but it appears that if you make an Android phone, you have to throw money at Microsoft. It’s probably due to some patent issue, but I’m not sure what.

It's only certain manufacturers, such as HTC & Samsung, who have come to their own arrangement with Microsoft. No-one has tested the legal waters yet, but that might change should Microsoft pursue Motorola/Google.

I haven't tried Windows Phone 7 yet. It wasn't out when I bought my last phone.
Is it any good?

From what I've seen of it, yes.

Almost decided on one but instead I now have a Galaxy S2.

Microsoft have a bunch of patents, which any manufacturer of a smartphone has to use (including things like circuitry to check battery charge level and signal level and provide a way of letting the operating system know that value), plus some software patents, such as FAT file system.

Google have to use / uses these patents in Android and their reference hardware, plus most of the manufacturers were building Windows phones long before Android came along, so they probably didn't bother re-inventing the wheel (htc, Samsung, Dell etc.).

This is more than just the "Linux uses 250+ Microsoft patents," call that MS have been using for years, there are actual hardware patents involved, which is why the hardware manufacturers are involved, at the moment.

I guess every big tech company now holds a fistful of patents that means that they all have to pay slabs of cash to each other or come to some "agreement". It must make it very hard for small newcomers to do anything innovative.

Apart from Apple, they just want to make sure that they are the only ones selling phones and are trying to sue everybody else out of business...

Yeah, of course. Apple are really nasty and horrible and evil and all the rest are just so sweet and nice and friendly... good grief.

Observation and a spot of reading a couple of years ago tells me that this is the American way of doing business. The idea is if you can't compete on the basis of your reduction fretting, you bring n the lawyers and try to sue the opposition into oblivion. This is why Europe is such a problem as we do things differently. However, the war is coming and the only thing the EU can do is regulate hard against monopolies forming.

But when you look at the Evil Empire (Microsoft), they are going to the opposition and saying, excuse me, you are using our technology, please pay up for the privilege.

Apple, on the other hand, are saying you stole our technology, stop selling everything full stop, end of story, go drop dead!

Okay, MS aren't angels and they are being foreful, when talking to other companies, but at least they are talking and coming to reasonable settlements. As Jobs said, in his biography, that the action against Android was a personal vendetta, I wonder if we will see a change of attitude over the coming months, now that Jobs isn't in control - they have to provide the best deal for their shareholders, and getting royalty payments on patents gives them much more return than big lawyers' fees for actions which have no return...

When someone infringes on your intellectual property, you have two choices. You can either licence your IP to them and require them to pay your for it, or you can ask them to stop infringing on your rights and therefore not ask them to pay you for it. Those are two equally valid legal choices.

You seem to be of the opinion that one is moral while the other is immoral. This is a fallacy anyway, since corporations are under no requirement to operate in a 'moral' way at any point. However, I can see absolutely no train of logic by which you can come to the conclusion you have. Both are valid, both are legal. The former allows the ''damage' to continue happening but compensates the IP owner for the fact, the latter stops the 'damage' from happening. They effectively sum to the same effect, the infringer doesn't gain from infringing the IP and the IP owner suffers no overall harm from the infringement.

I can see no obvious reason whatsoever that one is the 'right' way and one is the 'wrong' way.

Jon

Is extortion a criminal or civil offence?

Yes, but this is neither. As I'm sure you very well know.

By the way, if you want an actual case of abuse of the patent system in the US and the damage it can cause, try this one. A company whose main (and currently only) product made unsellable by a patent granted in the last year for a device that has existed since late in the century before last.

It would be perhaps better if you focused your energy on things that are actually unfair and do actually cost people their jobs and livelihoods, rather than attempting to make something out to be far away from what it actually is.

Jon

lol, and I'm none the wiser.

I'm guessing it's criminal, in which case some of these patent lawyers should in prison.