Apple Inc. (AAPL) Agrees To License Palm Patents For $10M

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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) recently made an agreement with a Japanese company to license their patents that were originally created by Palm and PalmSource.

Apple Inc. (AAPL) Agrees To License Palm Patents For $10M

ACCESS Co. LTD. ((TYO:4813)) was the first to announce this agreement. The new agreement is worth $10 million USD or 1 billion Yen. PalmSource, the now defunct brand that created Palm devices, now operates under ACCESS Systems Americas under the Japanese branch.

The first Palm OS was featured in over 38 million devices including the Palm Treo. This agreement is a real win for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) as it will hopefully give them another boost in smartphone sales. Last year, Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) tried to score some of the same patent agreements with ACCESS.

Palm was originally a personal digital assistant (PDA) which was an essential gadget of the nineties as it allows people to save names, addresses, and events on a small device that would initially merge with the cell phone. Unfortunately for Palm, competition from the likes of Android and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) helped dismantle Palm’s place in the market and forced them to go under.

When Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google’s Android emerged in the market, Palm was sold to HP but their new products like the Palm Pre and HP Touch Pad did not sell as well as they would have liked. Those products were subsequently dropped. Around that time, Palm’s new devices were operating under WebOS, an operating system that didn’t garner much interest and then was sold to LG, which is expected to be used in their next generation of television sets.

It will be exciting to see what Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) does with the patent licenses. Hopefully, it will inspire them to create the next generation of technology that goes beyond iOS.

It’s time for Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) to make some necessary changes if they want to stay relevant in the upcoming years.

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