10
Nov
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HTC, Apple End Patent Quarrels, Settle On Ten-Year Licensing Deal

Posted by in Android OS, HTC, Legal, News

It would appear that the patent battle between HTC and Apple, which has been going on since early 2010, is finally closed, with the two companies agreeing to opt for a ten-year licensing agreement.

The dispute began over two years ago when Apple levied a complaint regarding twenty patents at HTC, claiming infringement. Of course after that the two slapped each other with dispute after dispute, and the fight has boiled on ever since. The sudden conclusion comes as something of a shock, since – as the Verge reports – HTC Chairwoman Cher Wang said just three months ago the Taiwanese manufacturer had no plans to settle its spat with Apple.

04
Sep
2012-09-04_11h37_52

Amazon Signs Deal With Epix, Brings Paramount, MGM, And Lionsgate Films To Prime Instant Videos

Posted by in Amazon, News

Chances are, most of you only ever hear about Epix in an article discussing streaming rights (like this one). Epix is an online streaming video service a la Netflix that you can only get access to if you have a cable bundle that includes the site. Or, you know, if you have Netflix. For now anyway. The real value of Epix is the stable of movie rights it brings to the table, and now the joint venture is sharing its media library with Amazon Instant Video for all of the online retail giant's Prime customers.

According to Amazon, the deal will "more than double the number of titles available" to its customers who subscribe to the Prime service.

24
Oct
Android-Money

Microsoft Getting Royalties From Over Half Of All US Android Phone Sales, Plus: An Interesting Android Licensing Infographic

Posted by in Android OS, Legal, News

Yesterday, Microsoft announced its latest Android licensing deal with Taiwanese manufacturer Compal, marking the company's tenth such agreement to date. While such a small manufacturer in terms of market share makes little overall difference in Microsoft's profits derived from Android, its deals with HTC and Samsung, combined with various smaller manufacturers like Compal, means it now receives royalties from over half of all Android smartphones sold in the US (the figure may be even larger on a global scale).

6036.usandroidmarket

The major holdouts on the graphic above are Motorola Mobility and LG, though Moto is obviously the majority of that 47% chunk of green.

29
Sep
Android-Money

Editorial: Is Samsung's Patent Licensing Deal With Microsoft The End Of Royalty-Free Android?

Posted by in Android OS, Editorials, HTC, LG, Motorola, News, Samsung

It certainly seems like it. Yesterday, Microsoft announced via blog that it had concluded negotiations with Samsung and reached a licensing deal for the same seven patents it previously licensed to HTC for Android (along with other, smaller Android manufacturers). There were rumblings about just what royalty rate Samsung is paying, but the guess is anywhere from $5 to $15 per handset (it's likely on a percentage-of-MSRP basis - so think about 1-3% per $500 MSRP phone).

When it comes to royalty agreements, rates are usually internally fixed regarding certain categories of IP to avoid confusion about damages in lawsuits, but when there are allegations of continued infringement, the game changes.

18
Jul
Evil_Apple_by_rstovall

Why Apple's Patent Victories Over HTC Aren't All That Important Or Scary

Posted by in Android OS, Editorials, HTC

Android's latest indirect legal tussle to come to a head, a patent suit between HTC and Apple, was ruled on last week by the US ITC (Court of International Trade) - finding the Taiwanese manufacture liable for two counts of patent infringement. This news has spread like wildfire through every corner of the tech blog world. But is there really anything that's changed right now (or even in the near future) because of the outcome of this suit? Not really, no. Even the long-term, worst-case-scenario implications aren't exactly terrifying - and here's why.

Appeals Process

As many sites have pointed out, HTC has vowed to appeal the ruling of the ITC.

27
May
trollface

Lodsys Patent Trolling Starting To Target Android App Devs - OK, Now It's Personal

Posted by in Android OS, Apps/Games, Editorials, News

You've all probably heard bits and pieces of news about a company called Lodsys in the last couple of weeks, (they've been "patent trolling" iOS app developers) even if you don't really keep up on all things fruit-related. If you're not familiar with the story, let me give you a quick rundown.

Lodsys is what we affectionately refer to as a "patent troll" - a company that buys up promising and often vague or [overly] broad patents in a hope of using them to threaten to sue the pants off people that they know might be infringing on them. Let me say that again - they find a patent, find out how many people might be infringing it, and then decide to buy it.

29
Apr

[WTF] Barnes & Noble Responds To Microsoft's Android Lawsuit, Reminds Us Why MS Is The Devil

Posted by in Android OS, Editorials, News, NOOKcolor (Encore)

Last month, Microsoft took bookseller Barnes &  Noble, the company responsible for the Nook and Nook Color, to court over some patents infringed because B&N used the Android operating system in the Nook and Nook Color. This is definitely nothing new in the world of mobile devices. It happens all the time, especially with companies like Apple and Microsoft trying to take complete dominance of every arena they enter. That's not the big story here. The big story is the extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY douche-tastic way Microsoft is trying to attack Android with these patents.

One of Android's biggest advantages (besides being vastly superior, of course) is that it costs exactly nothing.

28
Mar
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[Updated] HTC Insists Android Kernel Sources May Be Published "When They Are Ready," Rather Than When Devices Are Released

Posted by in Development, Editorials, HTC, News, Thunderbolt (Mecha)

Some History

Update: Linux devs are not happy about this.

Update #2: And just like that, only a few hours after this article, HTC released the Thunderbolt kernel source.

If you've been following the "drama" around Android kernel source release timelines and device manufacturers (such as HTC), you should be already aware of 2 forces pushing in opposite directions:

  • On one side, we have the Android community, which maintains that according to GPLv2, Android kernel sources need to be published together with a given device release. Since Android kernel sources are essential to custom ROM development, it is clearly in the interest of the community to see them released sooner rather than later.

07
Mar
amazon store jail

[Updated: Amazon Provides Clarifications] Amazon App Store's DRM To Be More Restrictive Than Google's?

Posted by in Android OS, Applications, News

An interesting little tidbit came across to us in an otherwise ordinary posting on Amazon's app developers' blog. While developers will have the option to use DRM or not in their apps, those that do use the digital licensing service may present problems for those users who are temporarily without an internet connection.

Comparing it to the way Amazon currently handles the storing of Kindle books, the curious part of the post reads:

"Any app that has Amazon DRM applied to it will require users to have installed and signed-in to the Amazon Appstore client to access the app. When an app is accessed by the user, it will verify with the Amazon Appstore device service as to whether the user has an entitlement to the app.

27
Jul
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Google Sends An FU To Pirates, Introduces A Centralized Android Market Licensing Service

Posted by in Apps/Games, News

Android Pirates

Have you ever seen one of those annoying comments on the Android Market promising the riches and all the Android apps in the world for a low-low monthly price of $10? Sites like that pirate paid games and apps off the Market and then distribute them illegally, pocketing all the revenue. That's modern day warez at its finest.

Whether it was because of Android's openness or Google's notoriously poor focus on the Market, no DRM or licensing protection was available in the SDK for developers to utilize; so unless you rolled your own licensing scheme from within the app (which had a side effect of circumventing Google's payment system and therefore netted developers a whole lot more than 70% rev share), your app was easily "piratable".