Microsoft and Brother Industries have entered into a broad patent cross-licensing agreement that enables access to each company's respective patent portfolio, including Brother's embedded Linux printing products. Aimed at boosting R&D efforts, the agreement includes compensation paid to Microsoft by Brother, say the companies.

Over two years ago, Microsoft and Novell signed an interoperability deal. Part of this agreement was a patent deal that suggested that Linux infringed on Microsoft's IP. Since then, Microsoft has signed a number more of these deals with various companies, but the Novell one is still the most famous.

Microsoft Wednesday inked another cross-licensing patent agreement, this time with South Korea's LG Electronics, covering the company's Linux-based embedded devices.

Microsoft and Amazon.com have signed a wide-ranging patent cross-licensing agreement that provides each company with access to the other's patent portfolio. Specific terms of the agreement were not disclosed, but it was made clear that Amazon will be paying Microsoft an undisclosed amount of money as part of the arrangement.

Does the Microsoft-HTC patent agreement mean we can expect to see Microsoft weigh in on the Apple vs. HTC patent infringement matter? Or is the Microsoft-HTC deal just one more example (with more mobile-phone makers possibly to come) of Linux companies attempting to head off potential Microsoft lawsuits involving Linux?

Open-source pioneer and Novell Vice President Miguel de Icaza Thursday for the first time publicly slammed his company's cross-patent licensing agreement with Microsoft as he defended himself against lack of patent protection for third parties that distribute his company's Moonlight project, which ports Microsoft's Silverlight technology to Linux.

HTC is to pay Microsoft royalties on its Android based mobile devices under the terms of the new patent agreement

Microsoft has now posted the revised licenses for interoperability as a result of the EU antitrust agreement. Microsoft calls them the Microsoft Work Group Server Protocol Program License Agreements for Development and Product Distribution (WSPP Development Agreements). I don't know why they can't come up with better names. Probably for the same reason the Zune is brown.

Tuxera, the Finnish company behind the NTFS-3G open source driver, on its own initiative entered into an agreement with Microsoft over exFAT drivers.