No sueballs needed: Microsoft and Canon buddy up on patent deal

Microsoft has hammered out a patent-sharing deal with camera biz Canon. The two companies have agreed to cross-license their protected technologies, which cover stuff from digital photo products to mobile gear. No specific products, patents or platforms were named, however. Microsoft and Canon have signed other patent deals …

[Anonymous Coward]

"... Android devices it collects on have largely been credited with driving down Surface tablet sales ..."

As ye sow, so ye shall reap!

[Anonymous Coward]

Consider that Microsoft lost nearly a billion dollars on the first Surface

and how knows how much on Surface 2, driving down its sales might be doing Microsoft a favor! :)

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft cooperative accelerated innovation racketeering ..

"No specific products, patents or platforms were named, however"

I have three cups and under one of them is some 'integrated innovation', for a one-time-only offer I'm going to let you pay me a wad-of-notes to take a peek.

"Microsoft believes cooperative licensing is an effective way to accelerate innovation while reducing patent disputes"

License our stuff or we'll crush your company in court.

"the boom in Android sales has yielded a healthy flow of royalty payments, thanks to this tech licensing"

Which MS never developed don't own and won't take on Google head-on in court.

"Rather than take rival firms to court over claims of infringement", MS strong-arms them into signing worthless licensing agreements.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Microsoft cooperative accelerated innovation racketeering ..

So the Apple, Google,Samsung et al way of deal with patents is better then?

Lets see, you can have some of ours, if we can have some of yours.

Job done.

Or year after year, a few billion won here, a few billion lost there, millions in Lawyer fees and a huge drain on court time.

Still, if you think the latter one is the best, carry on.

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Microsoft FAIL

So this is it, Microsoft just turning into a patent troll. Moving from non-innovation by poorly imitating others' products and services, now into non-innovation by wielding bogus patents as a blunt object.