Digital Trends
Not many would have seen a patent war coming GPS maker TomTom and software giant Microsoft, but the two relativelydissimilar companies are heading to court. Microsoft announced on Thursday that it had filed suit againstTomTom in a Washington court for allegedly infringing on its intellectual property.
According to Microsoft corporate vice president Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft attempted for more than a year to enter a licensing agreement with TomTom before taking legal action.
You might not pay much attention to your computer mouse, other than to use it, but Microsoft does. CNET reports that the company has just filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission against a Taiwanese company, Primax Electronics, saying it violates Microsoft’s hardware patents.
It’s unusual for Redmond’s giant to be on the accusing side of the table in suits like this, but it claims Primax has violated seven different patents involving two separate mouse technologies – U2, which lets a mouse to connect to both PS2 and USB ports, automatically detecting which of the ports is used, and Tiltwheel, which uses tilting to bring in additional cursor movement.
In an interview with Fortune magazine (available online via the CNN Web site) Microsoft’s VP of intellectual property Horacio Gutierrez and Microsoft’s general counsel Brad Smith make the bold assertion that free and open source software (FOSS)—including the Linux operating system—violate some 245 Microsoft patents, and the company believes open source distributors and end users should pay royalties on the allegedly-infringed technology. In fact, Microsoft even implies that one reason for the quality of open source software is that it steals Microsoft technology.
You might not call them bedfellows yet, but Microsoft and Samsung are well on their way to a healthy relationship – they’re swapping patents. The software giant and consumer electronics behemoth announced their cross-licensing agreement Thursday morning in a press release.
Under the agreement, Samsung will be allowed to use Microsoft patents in all of its product lines, including computer products, set-top boxes, digital media players, camcorders, televisions, printers and home appliances. Microsoft will get the same access to Samsung’s patents for its own products.
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