Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 29th Jul 2012 10:48 UTC
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I don't think we know how much they actually ask for those patents. There are rumors about $10-15 per device, but then there are rumors about much smaller amounts, or even that MS ends up paying money as a result of cross-licensing (like was the case with Novell).
I agree that VFAT patent is garbage and should have been invalidated long time ago.
I thought Microsoft could not use their monopoly position on the desktop market to get an advantage in another market (patent extortion). They still have a desktop monopoly and because of their refusal to support other file systems, manufacturers of Flash memory are obliged to put FAT file systems on SD-cards, and memory sticks.





Member since:
2008-03-17
To be fair though, I don't think this applies to Microsoft: they are playing a different game.
It is almost as bad. They have some crappy patents like FAT and then demand royalties priced roughly the same amount as a WP7 license.