Microsoft Signs Agreement With Pegatron

Microsoft with Pegatron Corp group has signed an intellectual property licence deal over the usage of Android and Chrome platforms. According to the announcement made by Microsoft, Pegatron will have to pay Microsoft royalties under the agreement that covers "e-Readers, smartphones and tablets running the Android or Chrome platforms". The Chrome here refers to the Google Chrome OS, which is the cloud based operating system. However, the company has not laid out the details clearly.

Founded in January 2008, Pegatron deals in designing and manufacturing of computer accessories like set-top boxes, TVs, wireless systems and game consoles. Talking about the patent wars, Motorola breached the agreement with Pegatron by rolling out the agreements with almost all of the Taiwan based original design manufacturers (ODMs).
"With this agreement, Microsoft has now licensed four of the top five Taiwanese ODMs," said Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of the Intellectual Property Group at Microsoft. Also last year, he made an allegation against Microsoft that it had signed the intellectual properly licences with "more than half of the world's ODM industry for Android and Chrome devices".
According to Microsoft, the company has made on paper agreement with the manufacturers covering 70 per cent of Android devices, which are sold in US. Motorola currently demands 2.25 per cent of Microsoft's Xbox total sales as part of royalties for its patents. Microsoft's Xbox gaming features wireless LAN and H.264 video codec standards-based technologies.
According to US International Trade Commission court, Microsoft has been found violating four Motorola's patents with Xbox. This could result in a ban on the import of the Xbox devices until or unless Microsoft pays the royalties to Motorola.