With HTC Patent Deal, Apple Is Going For Android’s Jugular

Now HTC will have to pay hefty royalties to both Microsoft and Apple for every Android device it sells. Lawyers call this “royalty stacking,” and it can be a big problem in complex industries like smartphones. It’s perhaps not surprising, then, that the phone hogging the most real estate on HTC’s homepage today is running Windows Phone 8. It may be that the weight of these stacked royalties will effectively push HTC off of Android entirely — something that suits both Apple and Microsoft who are used to co-existing as a duopoly, as in the desktop OS market.