Remember when we talked about how Motorola Mobility (NYSE: MMI) is trying to ransom tech bigwigs Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) with its handful of industry-essential patents? And how would-be suitor Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) hypocritically has Moto's back?
Well, Cupertino and Redmond have inadvertently teamed up, united by a common enemy that is trying to make a mockery of the FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) terms that require Motorola to license its IP.
Apple recently filed an official complaint with European Union antitrust regulators over the case. The issue lies in Motorola's sky-high demands for what it considers a reasonable licensing fee but really amounts to 10-digit royalty payouts. The Mac maker is asking for some intervention and clarity, since it thinks Motorola is asking way too much for what it referred to as "an old pager patent."
Now Microsoft has joined Apple and similarly filed a complaint with the European Commission for the same issue, although its battle with Motorola stems from a different video-encoding patent that affects Windows laptops and Xbox game consoles. Mr. Softy even detailed its stance in an official blog post titled "Google: Please Don't Kill Video on the Web," since the H.264 video standard in question facilitates a large chunk of online video.
The software giant's post even gives us some extra financial context into how absurd Motorola's 2.25% demands are. H.264 is built using a pool of more than 2,300 patents, including Motorola's. That means that for a $1,000 laptop, Motorola wants a $22.50 cut for its 50 patents related to H.264. The entire patent pool has a royalty maximum of $0.20 per unit, while Microsoft pays only $0.02 thanks to volume discounts.
So Motorola wants more than 100 times what it costs to license the entire pool, just for its sliver of related IP. That figures goes even higher when you start looking at higher-end notebooks fetching price tags as high as $2,000.
Apple was able to get the European Commission to open an investigation into Samsung for the same reason, so I'd expect it to be practically guaranteed that the regulators will start scrutinizing Moto after Apple and Microsoft put in their respective complaints.
Googorola looks like it's almost a done deal, with U.S. and EU regulators signing off on the deal. The pair is still waiting for China, Taiwan, and Israel to turn in their ballots, so they can jointly hold the rest of the tech world hostage.
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