Nokia’s fourth-quarter earnings report painted a grim picture of the Finnish phone maker’s business last quarter, but amid the red numbers peppered throughout Nokia’s earnings release, the high-level terms of its agreement with Microsoft were revealed. In exchange for royalty payments estimated to reach into the billions over the life of the agreement, Microsoft makes quarterly “platform support payments” of $250 million to Nokia according to the vendor’s earnings report. ...

Microsoft is said to be close to finalizing a patent-licensing deal with Pantech. Microsoft already has similar agreements in place with Samsung, HTC, ViewSonic and other Android vendors; the company was aggressive in seeking patent-licensing deals with Android vendors in 2011 and is currently fighting to establish a licensing deal with Barnes & Noble, which has accused the company of charging “exorbitant licensing fees” and has even asked the federal government to probe Microsoft’s act...

Microsoft and LG have signed a patent agreement that covers LG’s tablets, mobile phones, and other consumer devices running Android or Chrome OS. Terms of the deal between the two companies have not being disclosed. However, this isn’t the first time Microsoft has targeted an Android vendor, previously signing deals with Samsung, HTC, and Acer, among others. “Together with our 10 previous agreements with Android and Chrome OS device manufacturers, including HTC, Samsung and Acer, this agreement with...

Research In Motion is reportedly working toward a major transition that will see the company begin licensing its BlackBerry software to third-party vendors including Samsung and HTC. In a recent research note, Jefferies & Company analyst Peter Misek wrote that his checks confirmed earlier reports that Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie will soon be removed from their roles as co-chairmen. The analyst says current board member Barbara Stymiest is indeed the front-runner to replace the pair, and he calls her...

Microsoft is chasing down Huawei in search of a patent licensing agreement, The Guardian reported on Tuesday. “Yes, Microsoft has come to us,” Huawei Devices chief marketing officer Victor Xu told The Guardian. ”We always respect the intellectual property of companies. But we have 65,000 patents worldwide too. We have enough to protect our interests. We are a very important stakeholder in Android.” Xu also said that “negotiations are in progress” with Microsoft, which ta...

Microsoft’s alleged strategy of forcing Android partners into intellectual property licensing deals with threats of legal action is once again under fire. In a report released on Friday, intellectual property management firm M-CAM offered a no-holds-barred analysis of Microsoft’s “license or we sue” strategy. The firm said Microsoft is offsetting its own failures in the mobile space by forcing more successful companies to pay royalties on Android device sales, and it likened Microsoft&...

One week after announcing a similar deal with Quanta, Microsoft on Sunday revealed a new licensing arrangement with consumer electronics original design manufacturer Compal Electronics, Inc. The Redmond, Washington-based software company has reached a deal with Compal whereby it will receive royalty payments on sales of Compal’s tablets, cell phones, eReaders and other devices powered by Google’s Android or Chrome platforms. With this new deal in place, Microsoft also now holds licensing agreement...

Microsoft and Amazon signed a licensing agreement in February last year that covers technology used in the Kindle and various other products. That agreement does not cover Amazon’s new Android-powered Kindle Fire tablet, BGR has learned, which means Amazon could be coughing up hefty licensing fees to Microsoft in the near future. The Redmond-based company recently signed a cross-licensing agreement with Samsung and has similar deals in place with HTC, ViewSonic and other Android device vendors. Microsof...

Dolby dropped a patent infringement case against Research In Motion after the two sides reached a licensing agreement, Reuters reported on Monday. Dolby filed a lawsuit against RIM on June 15th in the United States and in Germany in an attempt to block sales of BlackBerry smartphones and the BlackBerry PlayBook. The audio company also sought to recover financial damages. Dolby accused RIM of using its “highly efficient digital audio compression technologies” and filed a suit after RIM initially de...

With Research In Motion’s annual shareholder meeting scheduled to take place later today, one popular RIM-focused analyst is calling for the company to split its handset and network businesses into two separate companies. “RIM’s organization, like its handsets, needs modernization. By acting now, splitting RIM into network and handset businesses may target opportunities and unlock significant shareholder value,” RBC Capital Markets Managing Director Mike Abramsky wrote in a note to inves...

According to Reuters, Microsoft has asked Samsung to pay $15 for each Android smartphone it makes. The Redmond-based firm believes that its software patents cover the technology used in Samsung’s Android devices and if history is any indication, Microsoft will get its way. In April of last year, HTC signed an umbrella agreement with Microsoft in which it was allowed access to Microsoft’s patents for an undisclosed fee estimated to be $15 per device. South Korea’s Maeil Business Newspaper sai...

A firm called Lodsys has been targeting Apple and Android developers that it believes are using its in-app purchase technology illegally. Despite Apple’s efforts to argue that its developers are covered under the same license, Lodsys doesn’t appear to be letting up anytime soon — it’s giving developers 21 days to cough up licensing fees before it files lawsuits. In a few recent blog posts, Lodsys explained its position on the matter:[Apple's] letter was very surprising as Apple and Lodsys ...

Record labels seem to have a hard time understanding one, simple truth: after a consumer purchases a song — be it on a CD or digitally — the consumer owns that file. Period. It is, however, nice to know that at least one large corporation respects that fact, Amazon. In a letter penned to music labels, the online retail giant stated that its new Cloud Drive music service has boosted digital MP3 sales and goes on to explain why it does not need permission from record labels for its use. “There has...

In a recent press release, mobile device giant Nokia announced a tentative, signed agreement that will jettison the commercial licensing rights of the Qt development platform to Digia. “Through the proposed acquisition, around 3500 desktop and embedded customer companies from various industries are targeted to be transferred to Digia,” reads the announcement. “The transaction is expected to be closed by the end of March 2011.” Digia notes that Nokia will continue to “invest in t...