Microsoft Wants Royalties from Majority of Android Phones?

Microsoft Corp. is asserting that more than 50 percent of Android devices are now subject to licensing agreements, according to a claim by company lawyers Brand Smith and Horacio Gutierrez. They announced the claims via a blog post.

More important, today's announcement means that companies accounting for over half of all Android devices have now entered into patent license agreements with Microsoft, read the post. The company Sunday announced a new patent license agreement with original design manufacturer Compal.

Compal is a third-party designer and manufacturer of tablets and smartphones and generates $28 billion in revenue annually. As a result, every Android device Compal has its hand in will yield royalty payments to Microsoft.

We are pleased to have reached this agreement with Compal, one of the leaders in the original design manufacturing, or ODM, industry, said Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of the Intellectual Property Group at Microsoft, in a statement.

Microsoft is also believed to be looking for similar payments from Samsung, amounting to $15 per device. The two companies reached a cross-licensing agreement in late September but declined to reveal how much Samsung would pay in royalties.

Earlier this month, Microsoft also signed Quanta Computer to an Android-licensing deal for both operating systems. In July, Microsoft reached a deal with another Taiwanese contract manufacturer, Wistron, over Chrome.

At present, Google is facing patent-related litigation from Apple, Microsoft and Oracle. In an attempt to bypass patent litigation, its new version of Android - the Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) - has been designed with the limitations in mind.