That goes for any software,in-fact any product. If you get big enough somebody will sue you,and it might be cheaper to just settle, pay them off. It doesn’t matter if the Patents are valid or not,just have a look at Oracle vs Google. Also,MSFT is getting money from HTC not from Google,Big difference. I am sure if it actually went to court,all patents would have been invalidated or at most easily bypassed by changed to the code. However,legal extortion still works.
Your right ... HTC and Samsung are both paying MSFT for the priviledge of using Google. Seems like pretty much every Android adopter will pay MSFT. I don’t understand how Google can make new Android releases (ICS and Jellybean) and not get hit too.