According to analysts at Goldman Sachs Microsoft is making a handsome amount of patient license. Microsoft has already made similar royalty deals with several other Android device makes, most notably among them is HTC. Samsung and HTC account for over half of all the Android phones sold in the U.S. over the past year. The most notable company that has not signed a deal with Microsoft is Motorola who is the third largest Android maker in the U.S. With Google buying Motorola, we don't see a royalty agreement being made any time soon between Microsoft and Motorola either.



The reason Android device makers are signing deals with Microsoft is pretty simple, because they don't want to be sued. In an interview Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith said, "So far we have not seen a single Android device that does not infringe on our patents." In order to protect themselves from being sued by Microsoft, and ultimately paying more these companies are cutting hedging their bets and paying Microsoft upfront.

There has been no official word from Microsoft, Samsung, or HTC as to what patents in particular are being infringed upon, but Microsoft has a history of infringement cases against Linux-based products. It is rumored that HTC's royalty deal with Microsoft is for around $5 per Android device sold, so it would be safe to assume that Samsung's agreement is in that area too. Part of Samsung's agreement is the company's continued support of Microsoft phones, which basically means that Samsung now is agreeing to keep making Windows Phone devices. In a report released earlier this year it was estimated that Microsoft is making more money from HTC selling Android phones than it is selling its own WP7 devices.

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