14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has just announced that it reached an agreement with Wistron to renew their Android patent licensing agreement, so the company can continue using Redmond’s technology on its tablets, smartphones, e-readers and other devices powered by Android or Chrome OS.
While the two parties have not provided any information on the terms of the deal, Microsoft says that “this deal extends and expands a prior Android intellectual property (IP) license between the companies.”
Wistron isn’t obviously the first company that Microsoft signed a patent licensing deal with, especially because the software giant is the patent owner of several popular Android technologies currently in use on the majority of smartphones, tablets, and e-readers. Nikon, Canon, Acer, Samsung, and others are paying Microsoft millions of dollars every year to use these technologies.
$3 billion every years without moving a single finger
Unsurprisingly, Microsoft is very pleased about signing a new deal with Wistron, so the company praised the ongoing partnership in a press release today.
"We're looking forward to continuing to enhance consumer experiences through our renewed and strengthened partnership with Microsoft," said Eric H. Ma, head of Wistron's Legal Division.
"Combining access to Microsoft's cutting-edge technologies with Wistron's impressive engineering capacity is a powerful recipe for improved customer solutions," said Nick Psyhogeos, president of Microsoft Technology Licensing. "Our partnership with Wistron highlights the kind of opportunities created through mutual respect and alignment on intellectual property."
According to some recent estimates, Microsoft is making as much as $8 per manufactured Android device, which means the company might be earning more than $3 billion (€2.8 billion) every year without moving a single finger. The bigger Android device sales, the more money Microsoft makes and companies building Android devices have no other option than to sign patent licensing deals. Otherwise, Redmond will file lawsuits against them and there’s no way they can win this in court.