Bonum Certa Men Certa

Microsoft Crimes: From Bribing Chinese Officials to Blackmailing Chinese Manufacturers Over Linux

The Microsoft mafia takes on China

Yang Jia



Summary: New strategy in the fight against free Android, adding another layer of crime and corruption to Microsoft's behaviour in China

Microsoft is really desperate to stop Android, which kills Windows as the common carrier and the primary target for developers. One crime that I know Microsoft has not yet committed (as far as I'm aware) is assassination of or an attempt at assassination of its opposition -- a practice more common in China and companies like Coca-Cola, which Bill Gates admires, praises, and invests in (for profit through monopoly). Microsoft has tried dirty tricks and bribery, it even tried filing an antitrust complaint through a proxy and there is a lot of Microsoft FUD against Chromebook, which Ed Bott is spreading through ZDNet, seeding more rhetorical FUD. But the main attack on Android is a patent attack. Lauren Weinstein wrote: "Why did the patent troll cross the street?



"To work for Microsoft."

After allegedly bribing Chinese officials (those are the ones we know of, but the phenomenon is more widespread based on circumstantial evidence and recent examples from the OOXML saga) Microsoft is going to the manufacturer which is less likely to have incentive to take this to court, demanding payments for Android or making it seem like such payments are necessary. This is outright blackmail and should be dealt with as RICO Act violation. Well, the Microsoft booster puts Microsoft spin on it, under the headline "Foxconn must pay Microsoft for EVERY Android thing it makes" (is it that not posturing? Cannot verify, citation needed).

Microsoft will collect a royalty for every device built by Foxconn that runs Google operating systems Android or Chrome OS.

Hon Hai, the parent of the Chinese electronics behemoth, confirmed today it has inked a deal to license unspecified Microsoft patents on smartphones, tablets and TVs built by Foxconn that use Google's Linux-derived system software.

Neither party revealed exactly how much money was exchanged, or will be paid, under the new agreement, although Microsoft said a "broad" range of its patent portfolio had been licensed.

Foxconn builds its own Android tablets powered by Nvidia's ARM-compatible Tegra processors, but it is best known as the maker of Apple's iPads and iPhones, Amazon's Kindle, Sony's PlayStation 3, and a huge range of other electronics including laptops.


Since this deal is secret, we don't know what financial arrangements are involved. Recall the HTC FUD [1, 2], which was also affecting a Taiwan-based company. Here is a more balanced report which calls it a broad patent deal. It says:

Drummond specifically made reference to the attempt to acquire many Novell patents by a Microsoft-led consortium.


That would be CPTN. This Web site was launched in response to that Microsoft/Novell deal, which was the first to legitimise claims that Linux has debt to Microsoft.

Here is a news report about the deal, some spin from MSBBC, and finally a good report from Joe Mullin, an expert in patent trolls. Microsoft's patent terrorist, Horacio Gutierrez, thinks that because he wears a suit his mafia tactics won't have him treated like a criminal. Here is the response everyone seems to be citing:

One company—Taiwan's Foxconn—makes a staggering 40 percent of the world's consumer electronic devices.

Starting now, Microsoft will be getting paid a toll on a large number of those devices. The company's long patent-licensing campaign has landed its biggest client yet in licensing Foxconn, formally named Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. Foxconn has agreed to take a license for any product it produces that runs Google's Android or Chrome operating systems.

The Redmond software giant has insisted for years now that any company making Android phones needs to license its patents. That campaign has generally been successful; so successful, in fact, that by 2011 Microsoft was making more money from patent licensing than from its own mobile phone system.

Now, Microsoft says that more than 50 percent of the Android phones in the world come from companies that have agreed to take licenses to its patents, including smartphone makers like LG, HTC, and Samsung. And that number is likely going to jump up today, as it announces that Foxconn, the Chinese company that makes 40 percent of the world's consumer electronic devices, has agreed to join its licensing program.

The details of the agreement remain undisclosed, although the press release makes sure everyone knows which way the money is flowing: Foxconn will be paying Microsoft, and not vice versa. The agreement will apply to all Android and Chrome OS devices made by Foxconn worldwide, including smartphones, tablets, and televisions.


So when you buy a product with Android, then you have to pay additional fees to Microsoft, as if Microsoft contributed to those products. The strongest response we found came from Swapnil Bhartiya, who called it a bogus licence:

Microsoft has signed yet another 'bogus' patent deal with Taiwan's Foxconn, the world's lagest electronics maker. In a Microsoft blog the company claimed, "Microsoft Corp. and Hon Hai, the parent company of Foxconn, signed a worldwide patent licensing agreement that provides broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for devices running the Android and Chrome OS, including smartphones, tablets and televisions."

Foxconn seems to have chosen the 'easy' path of simply paying up a 'tiny' fee to Microsoft instead of going to the court. There is no doubt that Microsoft's claims that Android infringes upon it's patents are bogus as we have already seen in the B&N case where the company was taken to the court and then fearing that the case will expose Microsoft, the Windows maker surprisingly settled outside the court and 'paid' a heavy fee to B&N in the name of an alliance.


Microsoft not only dodges blackmailing the distributors (e.g. Samsung) or the developers (notably Google), it goes deep down onto the manufacturers, who have no incentive to fight in court. That's what makes it unique. This is criminal behaviour, but in the age of euphemisms they get to call blackmail "licensing" and monopoly "patent".

Recent Techrights' Posts

European Patent Office Illegally Gutting and Outsourcing Its Functions, Acting Like an Above-the-Law Commercial Business (It Won't Stop at Formalities Officers (FOs) and Classification Slop at the EPO)
breaking/violating laws and conventions
Links 19/09/2025: Lobbyist of American GAFAM Becomes Data Protection Commissioner in Europe
Links for the day
The Right to Punch People (Apparently)
At Brett Wilson, Brett's job title is "Head of Crime" and Wilson normalises calls for violence
Brett Wilson LLP Seem to Have Had Only One Litigation Client in 2025, He Was Previously Charged, Just Like the Serial Strangler From Microsoft (Whom They Now Represent)
Karma is superstition, regulators are not
Project 2030 to Cover How "Project 2025"-Styled Anti-Media Zealots From America Targeted Techrights and Tux Machines
The common denominator is also their attacks on women
Brett Wilson LLP Failed to Meet Deadlines Set by Judge 7 Months Earlier, Tried to Ruin Our Holiday, Then Had the Audacity to Ask Us for Over 3,000 Pounds for Its Own Lateness
As a matter of principle we will never respond to assassin while we are on holiday
 
Links 19/09/2025: Press Freedom Dying in US, Anti-Austerity Strikes in France, and Alan Rusbridger to Leave 'Prospect'
Links for the day
Offloading to the Sister Site
In the interest of not overwhelming readers
Links 19/09/2025: Coffee Club and "SpellBinding is Now Absurdly Fast"
Links for the day
Links 19/09/2025: Media Freedom Ceases to Exist in US, "Consider Dropping Twitter/X"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/09/2025: Thinking and Insect Bites
Links for the day
Microsoft E.E.E.: Git Will Now (or Very Soon) Fully Depend on Rust, Which is Controlled by Microsoft
Microsoft now makes Git dependent on Rust, or making Git dependent on GitHub, which is proprietary
Slop or Fake Articles Have Turned Linux Journal From a Pioneering/Trailblazing "Linux" Magazine Into a Nuisance
some sites with former reputation - good reputation - turn into cesspools
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, September 18, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, September 18, 2025
On Claims That After Bluewashing Red Hat Will Increasingly Become an Indian Company
Discussed this week (long and detailed)
Americans Attacking British Sites Only Months After They Leave America
We find it kind of funny if not ironic that this site, originally an American site, got legal harassment only from Americans and only months after it had moved to the UK
Despite Losing Over a Quarter Million Dollars a Year Software in the Public Interest (SPI) Gives Helping Hand to Libreboot
SPI's financial state depends a lot on its public image or its reputation
Slopwatch: Google Helps Plagiarism and Sends Traffic to Ripoff Artists
That Google as a company helps spamfarms is noteworthy
If You Want to Know the Future, Listen to the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and Andy Farnell
We're sure the FSF will have plenty of its own output
Links 18/09/2025: A Taliban Ban on Internet Access and Troubled US Job Market
Links for the day
Gemini Links 18/09/2025: Computer Literacy and Accessing Alhena's Database
Links for the day
Links 18/09/2025: US War on Media (Truth Banned, Cancel Culture by the Hard Right), NYT Chief Executive Warns Cheeto is Deploying ‘Anti-press Playbook'
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, September 17, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, September 17, 2025
Slopwatch: Fake Articles, Fake Text, Fake Images, Negative Slant on "Linux"
Google News has lost its value; the signal-to-noise ratio has fallen off a cliff
Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Relax-and-Recover on Proxmox and New Smolweb File Transfer Service
Links for the day
Fact: EFF Got Corrupted by Corporate Money. Microsoft Lunduke (Political Noise): The Issue With EFF is, It Kills Babies.
Microsoft Lunduke - as usual - finds a way to make it about abortions
Pacing Publication Up a Bit
The news cycles have gotten rather light and slow
Links 17/09/2025: Power Outages, Digital Controls, and Attacks on the Mainstream Media (by Insecure and Corrupt Dictators)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Flashing LineageOS and ROOPHLOCH
Links for the day
Links 17/09/2025: Long COVID Study, "Exposing Pegasus", and Chatbots Exposing Sensitive Data
Links for the day
Links 17/09/2025: Secret Settlement for Internet Archive and Google’s LLM Slop Summaries Attracting Lawsuits
Links for the day
The True Cost of 'Generative Models'
Funded and promoted by the companies that profit from the waste
'Big Slop' Attacks Contemporary Information/Knowledge and Creative Works, 'Big Copyright' (Cartel) Attacks the Old
Someone at IA will hopefully "blow the whistle" on what they actually agreed
Why We Find It Difficult to Trust Rust
A comparison between C/C++ and Rust
Slop Nihilism is Funded by Big Oil
Eventually human civilisation will destroy itself
Watching the OSI: Our Series Will Carry on Irrespective of the Chief's 'Resignation'
the OSI isn't even the real guardian of the term "Open Source"
Professor Eben Moglen Recovering From Open Heart Surgery
From his public pages (this is not secret)
Just What LibreOffice Needs? Another Language? (Rust)
what's all this concern about memory safety?
Many Microsoft Managers Are Leaving
"Hey hi" chaff or chaff about "hey hi" cannot eternally distract from the difficulties inside the company
There Are Red Hat (IBM) Layoffs, But Google News is Infested With Slopfarms
It contributes a lot to misinformation and it encourages plagiarism
Tomorrow, Microsoft's Tim Anderson's 'The Register MS' Offshoot Will Have Been Inactive for 2 Months (There's Also a Slop Problem)
We've already caught The Register MS using LLM slop for articles
Microsoft's Chief Legal Officer Leaves Microsoft After Nearly 30 Years
And not retiring
Even Windows Users Are Having Problems With "Secure Boot"
When it comes to security - Microsoft strives for the very opposite
Another Competition Crime of Microsoft, Long Facilitated and Advocated by a Bad Actor, Who is Funded by a Third Party to Commit Extortion Against People Who Have Correctly and Repeatedly Warned About It for Over 13 Year
We must always go back to the core issues
3 More Reasons to Replace Mozilla Firefox With LibreWolf
Thankfully there are de-enshittified versions of Firefox
USA Not a Place for Free Speech
In America, as in the US, the attacks seem more enhanced or advanced these days
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 16, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 16, 2025
Links 17/09/2025: Google Layoffs in "Hey Hi" (AI), Perplexity Hit With More "Hey Hi" (Plagiarism) Lawsuits
Links for the day
Gemini Links 17/09/2025: Reclaiming Things in a Digital Age and Moon Phases in CGI
Links for the day