Microsoft, Nikon ink patent deal for Android-based cameras

The software maker has convinced another device maker using Android as an embedded OS to pay it patent royalties.

Mary Jo Foley

Mary Jo Foley has covered the tech industry for 30 years for a variety of publications, including ZDNet, eWeek and Baseline. She is the author of Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft plans to stay relevant in the post-Gates era (John Wiley & Sons, 2008). She also is the cohost of the "Windows Weekly" podcast on the TWiT network.

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Mary Jo Foley

Feb. 22, 2013 5:30 a.m. PT

2 min read

Nikon Coolpix S800c runs Android — The Nikon Coolpix S800c point-and-shoot is also an Android device. CNET

Microsoft has signed patent-protection deals with a number of PC and tablet makers in the past couple of years. Now it's also forging similar deals with more companies embedding the Android operating system inside consumer devices.

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that it has signed a patent-licensing agreement with Nikon. The agreement "provides broad coverage under Microsoft's patent portfolio for certain Nikon cameras running the Android platform," according to Microsoft's press release.

Microsoft and Nikon have agreed not to disclose specifics, but Microsoft is acknowledging that it will receive undisclosed royalties from Nikon as part of the deal. Like Microsoft's other Android, Linux and Chrome OS patent deals, exactly which Microsoft-patented technologies the vendors are licensing is unknown.

At least some, if not all, of Nikon's Coolpix cameras are using Android inside.

This isn't the first embedded vendor with which Microsoft has signed an Android patent deal. In December 2012, Microsoft announced an Android patent deal with Hoeft & Wessel, a German manufacturer of devices and terminals for the public transportation, logistics and retail industries that use Android as their embedded operating system. It also signed a patent-licensing agreement with TomTom, a GPS maker, as part of a patent-infringement settlement.

Previously, Microsoft signed patent-licensing deals with a number of key OEMs and ODMs (original design manufacturers) using Linux, Android and Chrome OS, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Buffalo, Compal, General Dynamics, HTC, LG Electronics, Pegatron, Samsung, and Velocity Micro, among others.

News of Microsoft's latest Android patent deal came the same day that Microsoft and Oracle met with lawmakers in Washington to defend software patents. The pair are proposing that losers in software patent suits pay the winners' legal costs as a way to try to discourage dubious patent suits.

Microsoft also is promising the company will publish on the Web as of April 1 information that enables anyone to determine which patents Microsoft owns.

This story originally appeared at ZDNet under the headline "Nikon signs patent deal with Microsoft for Android-based cameras."