Microsoft Corp won a federal trade ruling that will force Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc to alter software on some of its Android-based mobile phones to keep bringing them into the US.
A US International Trade Commission judge found that Motorola Mobility infringed a patent covering a program by Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft called ActiveSync, which lets users generate meeting requests among a group. Six other patents were not violated, the judge ruled.
The ruling must still be reviewed by US President Barack Obama, who can override the order on public policy grounds.
“We hope that now Motorola will be willing to join the vast majority of Android device makers selling phones in the US. by taking a license to our patents,” Microsoft’s deputy general counsel David Howard said in an e-mailed statement.
An exclusion order would affect Droid 2, Droid X, i1, Cliq XT, Devour, Backflip, Charm and Clip models, according to a filing with the International Trade Commission.
Motorola Mobility said it was disappointed and would explore options including an appeal.
“Motorola Mobility will not experience any impact in the near term,” a company spokeswoman Jennifer Erickson said in an e-mail.
The ruling probably will push Motorola to reach a settlement and pay Microsoft a licensing fee instead of having to modify the phone software, said Charlie Wolf, an analyst with Needham & Co in New York.
“These cases usually end up with the parties settling,” Wolf said.
The case is part of a broader effort by Microsoft and Apple Inc to curtail the growth of mobile devices that run on Google Inc’s Android operating system. Google licenses Android for free to further its mobile-advertising business.
The platform has become the most popular for smartphones, with more than half of a market for mobile devices that Yankee Group has projected will reach US$360 billion this year.
Microsoft contends it should be paid royalties by makers of mobile devices that run on Android. The software maker has reached licensing deals with Samsung Electronics Co and HTC Corp (宏達電).
Motorola Mobility, which is being bought by Google, refused to pay and instead struck back in a case at the trade agency.
Microsoft’s willingness to license is different from Apple, which wants makers of Android smartphones to make changes to its devices, Wolf said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
AI TALENT: No financial details were released about the deal, in which top Groq executives, including its CEO, would join Nvidia to help advance the technology Nvidia Corp has agreed to a licensing deal with artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Groq, furthering its investments in companies connected to the AI boom and gaining the right to add a new type of technology to its products. The world’s largest publicly traded company has paid for the right to use Groq’s technology and is to integrate its chip design into future products. Some of the start-up’s executives are leaving to join Nvidia to help with that effort, the companies said. Groq would continue as an independent company with a new chief executive, it said on Wednesday in a post on its Web
CHINA RIVAL: The chips are positioned to compete with Nvidia’s Hopper and Blackwell products and would enable clusters connecting more than 100,000 chips Moore Threads Technology Co (摩爾線程) introduced a new generation of chips aimed at reducing artificial intelligence (AI) developers’ dependence on Nvidia Corp’s hardware, just weeks after pulling off one of the most successful Chinese initial public offerings (IPOs) in years. “These products will significantly enhance world-class computing speed and capabilities that all developers aspire to,” Moore Threads CEO Zhang Jianzhong (張建中), a former Nvidia executive, said on Saturday at a company event in Beijing. “We hope they can meet the needs of more developers in China so that you no longer need to wait for advanced foreign products.” Chinese chipmakers are in
POLICY REVERSAL: The decision to allow sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China came after years of tightening controls and has drawn objections among some Republicans US House Republicans are calling for arms-sale-style congressional oversight of artificial intelligence (AI) chip exports as US President Donald Trump’s administration moves to approve licenses for Nvidia Corp to ship its H200 processor to China. US Representative Brian Mast, the Republican chairman of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, which oversees export controls, on Friday introduced a bill dubbed the AI Overwatch Act that would require the US Congress to be notified of AI chips sales to adversaries. Any processors equal to or higher in capabilities than Nvidia’s H20 would be subject to oversight, the draft bill says. Lawmakers would have
RSS