It looks like a lot of the major tech companies are starting
to realize that going into a legal battle with another company for patent or
copyright infringement isn’t really a very productive exercise. And recently we’ve
seen a lot of big companies the likes of Tesla,
Microsoft
and Canon
sign agreements that will allow other brands to freely use their patents.
Today four new companies have forged similar agreements. The
first two are Microsoft and Dropbox who have announced a few hours ago a
partnership that will allow the Dropbox app to work more conveniently with the
Microsoft Office app. Specifically, users will be able to edit Office files
from the Dropbox mobile app, access DB files from the Office app and Share DB
links direct from Office.
The new features will be rolling out to all Dropbox users on
iOS and Android in the coming weeks. Moreover, Dropbox stated they plan to
extend these features to the web version of the service and Office Online. They
will also be releasing a Windows Phone and Windows tablet version of Dropbox
starting next year.
The second pair of companies that made an announcement today
was LG and Google. The two companies went into a patent licensing agreement
which is said to cover a wide range of products and technologies.
The agreement will cover both companies’ existing patents as
well as those that will be filed in the next 10 years. The details of the deal
are not disclosed yet but without any legal worries, this would allow the two
companies to properly focus on product development and bring consumers better
products in the future.
