“Apple Inc. licensed its prized design patents to Microsoft Corp but with an ‘anti-cloning agreement’ to prevent copying of its iPhone and iPad, an Apple executive said on Monday,” Dan Levine and Edwin Chan report for Reuters. “The testimony from Apple patent licensing director Boris Teksler came in one of the most closely watched technology trials in years”
Levine and Chan report,” Apple’s decision to license its design patents to Microsoft was consistent with its corporate strategy, Teksler said, because the agreement prohibited Microsoft from manufacturing copies. ‘There was no right with respect to these design patents to build clones of any type,’ Teksler said.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Imagine if such a deal with and “anti-cloning agreement” had been done with the Mac OS way back when.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Andrew W.” for the heads up.]
Microsoft getting smarter.. weird!!!
This agreement allows Microsoft to make software for Nokia phones that allow sliding, pinching, double tapping without any worry about Apple suing. OK, they cannot copy an iPhone, but it seems they want to go the way of Metro. So, great. Apple makes a few bucks and Microsoft officially agrees not to copy.
Metro? Didn’t you get the memo? 😉
It’s pretty clear Apple does not feel threatened by Microsoft any more.
“Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
Remember the “look and feel” suit against MS?
I have to figure that Apple is licensing tech to MS (again) with the absolute knowledge that MS is not to be trusted, and that MS will eventually try to use Apple’s tech in a way they are not licensed to do.
Wonder what will happen this time?
and it has been noted already in the trial…
that Microsoft has infringed on several patents already
MSFT is in such disarray, and Apple is so far ahead of them, that Apple figures it doesn’t have as much to fear from them as it does an unbridled Samsung. I agree 1,000%.
Now to hope that Ballmer remains CEO of MSFT another 5 years.
Agreed, but let’s take into consideration Apple and Microsoft have a common enemy today: Google.
Remember “and, boy, we patented it”. A lot of what happened with Windows was because of poorly legal agreements. In the end, legally speaking – and we can argue that – the fact that Microsoft stole Mac OS was disputed, courts couldn’t agree on that and Sculley finally decided to settle up with Microsoft.
Remember BEFORE, though, Bill Gates was a big advocate for the Mac. He really loved it. And a lot fo the software he developed back then was important for the Mac: Word, Excel, and Basic were tools to compete with IBM and the IBM PC back then. It could have been a really nice alliance, but it got sour.
Lesson for Apple? One: Don’t write poor contracts again. Two: Microsoft could be useful.
To be honest, I’d rather have a legal Microsoft mobile product than a stolen Android product in the market. Windows 8 on a mobile looks so much nicer than Android. Android is just plain awful.
Having said that, I still believe Microsoft stole from Apple, I still don’t like their products, I still think Windows is awful, and they are responsible for 10+ years of stagnation of the computer software technology.
+
When you look at this together with the offer that was rejected by Samsung, it proves that Apple is prepared to offer licensing deals so long as the devices using them are not clones of Apple products. Apple are clearly very concerned that others should not make look-alike products.
Samsung refused to make a deal and just ripped off Apple’s ideas regardless. This should make punitive damages much more appropriate.
Design patents are TOTALLY different than utility applications.
Hence, it is not clear just what was truly licensed.
Design patents are just as potent. I was sued by an international commercial telephone system manufacturer back in 1998 over a design patent (I was the victim of exceedingly bad legal advice). It was settled with a license.
In the case of MSFT and Apple, what was licensed was feature/function IP.