You Embed Windows, Microsoft Pays Lawsuits

By Geoff Duncan Published June 19, 2018

In a move designed to increase the appeal of Windows operating systems to makers of mobile and embedded systems, Microsoft announced yesterday it is extending intellectual property protection it offers to device makers using its Windows Mobile and Windows Embedded operating systems. Microsoft is now offering to foot the entire legal bill if OEM partners using those operating systems are sued for patent, trademark, copyright, trade secret, or other intellectual property claims in every country in which Microsoft distributes and markets those operating systems.

The move comes as a much-publicized, multi-year patent dispute between BlackBerry maker RIM and patent holding company NTP comes to a head, causing many companies to re-examine and renew their patents. Firms are now viewing technology partnerships with other companies not only on their technical and marketing merits, but also in terms of intellectual property risk exposure. If including a technology could expose a maker to patent or intellectual property suits, the partnership may not be worth pursuing, even if those claims never hold up in court.

Recommended Videos

Microsoft’s offer to pay the bills for any intellectual property disputes regarding Windows Mobile and Windows Embedded is intended to ease partners fears about including those operating systems in their devices, and give the Microsoft operating systems a leg up against competition from Linux and other embedded systems which offer no such litigation protection. “This program enables our OEM and distributor partners to select Windows Embedded and Windows Mobile with even more confidence than ever,” said Suzan DelBene, VP of Microsoft’s Mobile and Embedded Devices Division. “We stand behind our software and partners, and this protection is the best assurance for device-makers using Windows Embedded or Windows Mobile to build amazing devices people won’t want to live without.”

Microsoft had previously offered litigation protection to its OEM partners, but the amounts were capped based on the partners’ business volume with Microsoft. In June 2005, Microsoft also removed caps on litigation protection it would offer PC makers hit with intellectual property suits resulting from their use of Microsoft software.

Former Contributor

Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

Computing

Google Earth’s AI misadventure lasted only a day. It was a tale of dangerous ignorance.

Nuclear reactors, tanks, and historical destruction on a life-like satellite map? Yeah, that's bad.

Nano Banana AI image generator representation.

Technology behemoths are clearly not reading the room, or they are just moving faster than they should when it comes to AI deployment. Google has already stuffed its Gemini AI in every corner of its software stack, from Android to daily productivity tools like Gmail that are used by hundreds of millions of users every day. AI is everywhere. Not all of it is bad, mind you. But in a few places, it just feels forced.

In its latest AI-fication experiment, the company targeted Google Earth. The idea was to let the audience use its Nano Banana 2 AI image generator and make images that can be placed on the map view. On paper, it's a cool idea. What would the Colosseum of Rome look like in your urban neighborhood? Yeah, fun stuff like that.

Computing

AMD is apparently gearing up to raise GPU prices right after Nvidia’s steep hike

AMD has reportedly told AIB partners about a price hike that goes into effect in. August.

AMD RX 7800

AMD is next in line to raise the asking price of its Radeon GPUs, merely days after the news of a similar hike coming for Nvidia graphics cards started making waves. As per ChannelGate on Weibo (h/t VideoCardz), AMD has informed its board partners that the price of GPU and memory bundles will go up by at least 10% in August.

Is a similar price hike coming for standalone graphics cards? I won't be surprised if that happens. The situation is so bad that AMD is planning to bring back graphics cards with 4GB of onboard memory. AMD just introduced the RX 9050 GPU, which costs $279. Notably, it's just $20 less than the RX 9060 XT that offers double the graphics memory.

Computing

Microsoft will make Windows work well with just 8GB RAM. We desperately need it

The dream of a reliable and affordable Windows laptop hinges on the next milestone at Microsoft.

Surface laptop on wooden table

The year 2026 has marked a huge course correction for Microsoft after years of frustrating users with plenty of confusing processes, unoptimized UI elements, and just the generous bloatware that can bring any Windows system to a crawl. Microsoft has finally shifted into a new phase. From fixing the right-click behavior to speeding up the Search system, the company has fixed plenty of papercuts.

The next major milestone is making Windows 11 run smoothly on Windows PCs with just 8GB of RAM. That directly means entry-level and budget laptops will at least get the basics right, even if that means sacrificing the on-device AI bells and whistles. Let's face it. The increasingly AI-first approach to computing on a Windows 11 machine is a little too taxing on the hardware at hand.