Stefan Mileschin

Microsoft has opened the champers after seeing off Google-owned Motorola Mobility in a patent battle over the H.264 codec.

The battle involves three patents, 7,310,374, 7,310,375, and 7,310,376, that Motorola licences to the Xbox 360, Windows and Windows Phone.

Motorola wants $4 billion a year, which Vole thinks is a little on the steep side. It also thinks that it is a violation of fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) standards. It will write a cheque for a million bucks and not a penny more.

In a 28-page ruling US district judge James Robart granted Microsoft's request for a partial summary judgment and decided that many of Motorola's claims are invalid because the language in the company's patents isn't sufficiently articulate.

Robart said that Microsoft has provided substantial evidence from technical journals and dictionaries to prove, for instance, that some of Motorola's technologies amount to general purpose devices that are indistinguishable from the general purpose computer.

Patent blogger Florian Mueller wrote in his blog that a rate could finally be decided soon, and it's likely to be in the vicinity of a couple hundred thousand dollars a year.

This will tigger any attempt from Google to screw billions of dollars out of other companies. It also looks like the $12.5 billion it spent on Motorola Mobility's extensive array of intellectual property might not net Google what it hoped.

Getting money out of Microsoft was not really the plan. It was more an attempt by Google to stop Microsoft and Apple killing off Android with patent actions.

http://news.techeye.net/software/mic...a-good-kicking