The Android patent attacks against Microsoft are unfair
Critics who are generally mad at Microsoft or the patent system are painting a false David-and-Goliath picture
Follow @MobileGalenIt's not often that Microsoft is a victim, but in this case, it has been persecuted over its efforts to collect royalties on the patents it holds related to Android devices. Microsoft signed up two small Asian manufacturers to pay licensing fees for those patents, two weeks after HTC -- one of the largest Android device makers -- agreed to pay.
When the HTC license was announced, many of us in the media guffawed how Microsoft makes more money from its Android patents than it does from its own Windows Phone 7 business. But when two small companies agreed to pay license fees to Microsoft this week, the knives came out quickly, with "David versus Goliath" diatribes across the blogosphere -- even here at InfoWorld -- using phrases like "caves to Microsoft pressure," "legal steamroller snagged two small players," and "scare as many tiny Android hardware manufacturers into submission as it possibly can."
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It's patently unfair, if you'll pardon the pun.
Tech companies routinely enforce their patents. Why should Microsoft not do the same? Despite the dark language suggesting Microsoft is stomping all over the little guy, that's just nonsense. HTC is no little guy, and it agreed to the patents. HTC is in a patent fight with Apple over gesture interfaces -- indicating that HTC doesn't just roll over when it thinks a patent claim is unfair. Microsoft sued Motorola Mobility over Android patents as well; clearly, it's fiction that Microsoft is tackling the little guys and avoiding the big ones, as my colleague Woody Leonhard suggested this week. In fact, pretty much everyone in the mobile industry has sued everyone else, as they all seek advantage in this growing market. The Guardian U.K. has a great chart showing this web of patent intrigue.
