Samsung paid Microsoft $1 billion in Android patent-licensing royalties in 2013 | ZDNet

Android is not free; device manufacturers using it simply pay Microsoft rather than Google

"So we knew Microsoft's Android-patent-licensing business was big. But it's even bigger than many had estimated.


Thanks to a filing unsealed on October 3 in the Microsoft vs. Samsung U.S. District Court patent-royalty case filed in early August 2014, we now know that Samsung paid Microsoft $1 billion in 2013 for a single year's worth of patent-licensing royalties.

Samsung agreed in 2011 to pay Microsoft a then-undisclosed amount for licensing patents upon which Android allegedly infringed. That agreement was structured as a cross-licensing and business-collaboration agreement."

Samsung paid Microsoft $1 billion in Android patent-licensing royalties in 2013 | ZDNet