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Comment by rbanffy | Hacker News Reader

If Nokia, now owned by Microsoft, distributes a Linux variant, wouldn't that void all patent royalty claims they have used against other manufacturers? Any N1 owner can redistribute their source (which they have to make available) and grant the same usage rights the N1 owner got from Microsoft, effectively granting each and every Android manufacturer the same rights of N1 owners.

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Nokia sold off its phone division along with limited rights to the Nokia brand name to Microsoft. Nokia is still a large company with several different divisions not owned by Microsoft.

This tablet seems to be from the old, independent Nokia, not Microsoft.

This tablet is from the Nokia that was not acquire by Microsoft as mentioned in this comment. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8623311

The GPLv2 is only a copyright license, not a patent license. Some open-source licenses do require you not to enforce any of your patents that might be used in the product, but the GPLv2 does not.

As others have pointed out, this tablet isn't from Microsoft, but even if it were from Microsoft it wouldn't matter because no patent rights are conferred by the GPLv2.

If I grant you the unrestricted use of my software and grant you the right to further grant all the rights I granted you to others, how can I enforce a patent license without breaking the terms under which I licensed the software in the first place?

Microsoft only bought Nokia's devices division, this is a product by the actual Nokia.

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