Again, except that if your lawyers are worth any salt, they would have continued with the trial because they would know that if HTC could get $5 for licensing fees, then by continuing the lawsuit to the point where a judge/jury made the decision, they could get the same or similar damages.  So why settle a case for more in licensing costs?  The cost of lawyers for a trial won't be more than the cost of licensing over time?

Again, the HTC case was precedent, while that works in Microsoft's case, it also works in Samsung's case.  So again, I sincerely doubt Samsung is paying more than $5 per handset.

Sure, I agree about the final setlement, maybe I wasn't clear enough, I'm just suggesting that if roughly $5 was the final deal, at least the bargainings started before the HTC deal was revealed, and the HTC bargaing itself, obviously, must have started with MS asking for more than $5 and the opposing party offering less. And as we're talking about professionals of the matter, I can agree too that  the initial offers and requests must not have started too far away from the final deal.

But they don't want to. They want to take this to court. While they battle this out in court, a 360 ban could happen.

Microsoft can use WMV V1 for its own content, but for video services like Hulu and Netflix, they need to be able to support H.264.

No, Microsoft is not claiming H.264 is necessary (an opinion), Microsoft is stating that H.264 is a standards patent which Motorola agreed to and thus is obligated to license under Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms  (a fact).

H.264 is the encoding method made standard in the United States by the Motion Picture Entertainment Group (MPEG) for the encoding and decoding of all HD video content.  From ATSC video transmissions used to send video over cable, satellite, or the airwaves, to streaming HD content, or to Blu-Ray discs, all HD content in the US uses H.264.  Because of this standardization, it is also the agreed upon encoding/decoding method for video in HTML5.

Every Blu-Ray player, every Web browser, every video camera, etc, has to license Motorola's H.264 patent.  Motorola is guaranteed a license for its patents, therefore it need not charge an extortionate price for licensing, and it agreed not to.

I guess that would also defeat the purpose of having a unified 'standard' for interoperability reasons.  As H.264 is a standard and is therefore widely adopted the royalty payments should be less than non-standard payments. 

@adin
thank you for explaining that to me.
so, what is the standard xharge that everyone pays?

Also, sure an os price cuts into profits, but android is a brand in itself. The question is, do you sell more phones with android. Its not a question of which is more profitable per unit but which is more profitable overall, correct?

They are taking it to court because it hasn't been banned. When the only options are pay or ban, they will pay.

Motorola's goal isn't to ban Microsoft products. They have nothing to really gain from that. They just want the money.

A ban is not going to happen. It just makes for more sexy news.

When it came to the patents that Android was infringing upon, MS approached each of the Android device manunfacturers with an attempt to settle out of court.  The overwhelming majority of them have.  Motorola, instead, chose to fight and (as of now) has lost.  Considering the likely relatively low cost of the proposed settlement, that fight seems to be a foolish one, as it's clear that Samsung, HTC and others are doing just fine financially and, most importantly for us, there has been no cost increase for the consumer.

What Motorola/Google is doing with the h.264 patent suit (which is a completely separate matter), though, COULD trickle down to us.  Why?  Because, as has been discussed clearly and much better than me many times in this thread, the license under FRAND should not be this exhorbitant.  It seems to be more of a strike at MS (as I have not heard any other company being sued for this though it is extremely likely that h.264 is all over the place) than an effort to receive a reinbursement that is fair.

I'm surprised that people would defend Motorola in this situation, as it is clear they are demanding an unusually high amount.  Well, except for those that just want to see Microsoft burn ...

Well, I already agreed that the number was too high, but others made mention that the numbers asked for by MS were too high until they settled on 5$. I don't know how accurate it is, but it seems to me that MS also approaches with a too high number and the negotiate, and that seems to be what Motorola is saying they were doing with MS and that number was negotiable.