Microsoft Accuses Motorola of Being a Patent Bully [VIDEO]
Irony, thy name is patent law. Microsoft filed a complaint with the European Commission against Motorola for aggressively asserting its patents, charging that Motorola ignored commitments it made to support industry standards. The filing comes shortly after Apple registered a similar complaint.
In a post titled “Google: Please Don’t Kill Video on the Web,” Microsoft says Motorola (which Google is in the process of acquiring) has broken its promise on the contribution it made to developing standards for streaming video and connecting devices to the Internet via Wi-Fi. The post alleges that Motorola is making unfair demands for compensation on the patents it holds for technologies like H.264, a standard video format.
In a searing example, Microsoft says Motorola demands $22.50 on any $1,000 Windows laptop sold to satisfy its 50 patents on H.264. To use the standard at all, Microsoft says, it must satisfy 2,300 other patents, which costs the company a grand total of two cents. Microsoft says Motorola’s demands not even “remotely close” to reasonable, and it’s hard to disagree.
Patent expert Florian Mueller of Foss Patents definitely appears to agree with Microsoft’s point of view, describing Motorola’s behavior as “FRAND abuse terrorism,” calling out Samsung on behaving similarly. (FRAND stands for fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory.)
“I can see what Apple and Microsoft are complaining about,” Mueller wrote in a blog post. “If every owner of standard-essential patents behaved like Motorola, this industry would be in chaos, and grind to a halt. (...)
