Google Android logo: but for handset makers, the patent fees payable to Microsoft and perhaps Nokia are threatening to mount up Microsoft is reportedly demanding $15 per Android handset sold by Samsung - and has other Android handset makers in its sights as it tries to extract the maximum value from the patents that it owns which it can argue cover mobile. Fabulous quote: "We are pleased that Wistron is taking advantage of our industrywide licensing program, established to help companies address Android's IP issues," said Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing at Microsoft. Yes, certainly glad. If Microsoft can get that money from Samsung (though it's more likely that this is an opening salvo; Samsung is said to want to get it down to $10, which isn't much of a negotiating position) then Android is going to become the best earner Microsoft has in mobile. Given that Samsung produced 19m smartphones in the first quarter, that would be $190m even at the $10 level; $285m at the $15 level. There's also a lawsuit going on against Motorola, in which it's claiming that its Android handsets infringe, and with Barnes & Noble over its Nook e-reader (which uses Android). And that's before Nokia - with which Microsoft has tied up a deal worth billions involving lots of intellectual property flowing back and forth - wades in with its patents against Android, because Nokia has got lots of patents in the mobile phone