Microsoft waves Frand at Motorola

Microsoft has filed suit against Motorola, not for patent infringement but for refusing to license patents on "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" (Frand) terms like it promised. Microsoft is suing Motorola, claiming that the licensing terms Motorola is demanding exist "for the purpose of extracting unreasonable royalties …

[Andy Jones]

Seems fair

You would never catch Microsoft demanding royalty rates above and beyond anything that is fair and reasonable, say like $10 or $15 per machine sold from Asus or Acer? Oh no.

[Mike Dimmick]

Windows contains all sorts of patented technologies

Microsoft is trying to ensure that they don't have to charge $20 or $25 to Asus or Acer. Part of the cost of a Windows licence is the per-copy royalties for MPEG2, MPEG4 AVC (H.264), WiFi, JPEG, etc, etc. 'Fair and non-discriminatory' means the same terms for all licensees, and that's something MS have had to swallow - that they can't charge Acer more than they charge Asus or Dell.

[Goat Jam]

No

But they can be more "generous" when it comes to providing "marketing support" though, which is how they usually stick it to their "partners" who don't toe the line.

[JaitcH]

Motorola only mimicking MS - screw the competition!

I guess Motorola is no 'frand' of Microsoft.

Motorola is simply returning the MS' compliment after it was sued. The hypocrisy is amazing to behold.

[thecakeis(not)alie]

Hypocrisy from a corporatist, politician or megacorporate entity?

Shurely shome mishtake!

[Mikel]

Big mistake

Suing Motorola over Android was a big mistake. HUGE. Microsoft is just now figuring out how huge.

FRAND doesn't preclude a company from conducting reasonable negotiations for things of value other than money - technology cross-licensing for example. And if the negotiations take so long that products are delayed, that can't be helped. Microsoft would never play this game to its own competitive advantage with ActiveSync and the other patents they're suing people over. Oh, no.

[DrBruce]

FRAND is better than sequestering a patent

Would Big Oil companies purchase a patent for powerful batteries for electric cars only to sequester the patent and not license it at any price?

Obviously, Motorola must create a market for its patents through licensing to create consumers, otherwise it would realize no revenue from the patents. Greed works only to a certain point where licensees fail to pay to use the patents and then there is no consumer market and lost revenue.

[Rex Alfie Lee]

No "frands" here...

Sorry I know it's truly tacky but I had to do the frands joke just once more because I could see by the posts that Microsoft has no frands here at all.

Poor, poor Microsoft. They are so hard done by...

[crayon]

MS's frand

Didn't MS used to (or still?) have a "FRAND" policy whereby they charge PC manufacturers for a copy of the OS whether or not a machine shipped with an OS?