Since Apple seems to think so highly of patents and are so quick to frown upon others when they infringe their patents, then it’s only fair that Motorola does the same to them, and asks for their fair share. Since Motorola actually won the lawsuit in Germany against Apple, and proved that Apple infringed on their patents, and they also complained that Motorola is not asking them to pay for the license, just to block them, now Motorola is giving them that opportunity – to pay 2.25% of Apple’s revenues to them.
That kind of license would give Motorola an extra 2 billion in pure profits per year. That would be a huge amount of money for Motorola, and for Google, too, considering that Google is now buying Motorola, so all that money would go to them. The question is, will Apple agree to this? Probably not, but even if they end up paying half of that, Motorola would still be up in revenues by a billion, which is no pocket change to them, who are still not very profitable.
In effect, this will also mean that Apple is losing the patent war – a war that they started themselves. It would mean they are losing more money than they are making from this war. This is how silly this whole war is, and why it needs to stop immediately, and it would be in Apple’s best interested if they were the ones to call for a cease fire.
The other interesting part about Motorola’s win is how it might affect Microsoft later. It’s possible that Motorola can use this patent against Microsoft, too, and maybe others as well, and get them to stop charging Android manufacturers money for Google’s own OS. I figure they could at least get them to not charge more than say $5, or even $3.
But I don’t think that would be enough or fair. Google needs to go all the way, and get Microsoft to drop their licensing program to Android manufacturers completely. The reason for this is because Android needs to stay open source, in any shape or form. Not being open source completely, because Microsoft gets to charge others for patents, doesn’t make it that open, and it hurts small manufacturers. Google should use every patent at their disposal, even search patents, to try and stop Microsoft. After all Microsoft is trying the same with them already, and they are even trying to charge for Chromebooks. Google would just be fighting back.