I wonder how much money Microsoft is making by providing patent coverage for Linux. They got Amazon to pay up, too. God knows how many companies have been coerced into paying these absurd licensing fees to MS just because they use Linux somewhere. I guess TomTom is an example of what could happen when you don't play ball.

At the same time Microsoft was rumbling at TomTom over patents, TomTom was rumbling at Microsoft over patents. TomTom's an old hand at suing over patents, having sued a few other GPS makers and users.

Only after about a year of negotiation over cross licensing failed to reach an agreement did both sides file suit. Yes, Microsoft got their suit filed first, by about a month or so. However, it takes several months to prepare to file a patent suit, so it's clear both sides had been working on it for a while.

As far as I've been able to find, there's no public information as to who actually was the initial aggressor between Microsoft and TomTom. But given that up to that time Microsoft had not sued anyone over software patents, and has not sued anyone since then over software patents, and that TomTom had sued people over software patents (in Eastern District of Texas, even), it seems likely that TomTom was the aggressor.

From a strategic point of view for Microsoft (and assuming the assertion in the OP is true), why would Microsoft be willing to help HTC (and consequently, Android) considering that Microsoft has a competing platform due for arrival later this year?

Who do you think will making those Windows 7 phones?

http://www.htc.com/www/press.aspx?lang=1033&id=124244

(Conspiracy Theory) Embrace and extinguish? I'm no expert on the numbers but neither seems to be on top of the market. If they can 'work together' they could perhaps change this situation or at least improve it in their favor.

If they're making money licensing patents to competitors, then it doesn't really matter if they have a competing product coming out. They either make money or make money... its just where it comes from that changes.

Maybe they were desperately looking for patent protection and Microsoft was the cheapest vendor willing to sell it to them.

Why isn't Google throwing a line to HTC as well? Maybe they don't have anything to help them?

Maybe HTC doesn't need their help?

HTC said when this first showed up that Apple's lawsuit caught them off guard, so it naturally took a bit of time to figure out what patents Apple was infringing on.