NBCUniversal is in talks with Microsoft to buy back MSNBC.com, according to AdWeek, which reports that the negotiations have progressed to the point where NBC's parent company, Comcast, is doing due diligence.

MSNBC and MSNBC.com are joint ventures between NBC and Microsoft. In 2005, AdWeek reports, NBC purchased the majority of Microsoft's stake of MSNBC. MSNBC.com, though, remained a joint venture.

Microsoft declined to comment on the report.

A German court today ruled that Motorola infringes on a Microsoft patent involving long text messages on its Android devices.

The Munich Regional Court ruled that Motorola infringes on a Microsoft patent allowing people to send and receive SMS messages with many characters.

The court also ruled, in a separate case, that Motorola did not infringe on another Microsoft patent involving allowing people to switch between languages on their Android phone without having to install a different version of the same application for each language.

Microsoft and Motorola, which is now owned by Google after clearing its last regulatory hurdle this week, have been battling over patents in courts around the world. The cases the Munich court ruled on today are separate from battles the two companies are fighting over industry-standard patents.

Microsoft issued a statement on today's ruling, saying the company is pleased that "the court agreed today that Motorola has infringed Microsoft's intellectual property, and we hope Motorola will be willing to join other Android device makers by taking a license to our patents."

Motorola issued a statement as well, saying "we expect a written decision from the court on June 1st and upon review, will explore all options including appeal." It also said it was pleased that the German court ruled that Motorola did not infringe on the other patent.

The U.S. International Trade Commission has ruled that Motorola violates one of Microsoft's patents in some of its Android products and has prohibited the import of those products into the U.S.

There will be little immediate effect, as there is a 60-day presidential review period, during which the ban will not take place.

After that, Motorola presumably would either have to stop importing those products, take out a licensing deal with Microsoft, or use a work-around so it won't have to use the Microsoft technology in its Android products.

Motorola said it may appeal the decision.

Today's ruling stems from a case that Microsoft filed with the ITC in October 2010, alleging that Motorola violated nine of its patents. Microsoft eventually dropped two of those patents from the case, so the ITC considered seven, saying today that Motorola violated one of them.

The patent that the ITC says Motorola infringed upon is related to calendaring in Microsoft's ActiveSync technology.

Motorola issued a statement, saying:

Microsoft started its ITC investigation asserting 9 patents against Motorola Mobility. Although we are disappointed by the Commission's ruling that certain Motorola Mobility products violated one patent, we look forward to reading the full opinion to understand its reasoning. Motorola Mobility will not experience any impact in the near term, as the Commission's ruling is subject to a $0.33/per unit bond during the 60 day Presidential review period. We will explore all options including appeal.

Microsoft issued a statement as well, saying:

Microsoft sued Motorola in the ITC only after Motorola chose to refuse Microsoft's efforts to renew a patent license for well over a year. We're pleased the full Commission agreed that Motorola has infringed Microsoft's intellectual property, and we hope that now Motorola will be willing to join the vast majority of Android device makers selling phones in the US by taking a license to our patents.

This case is one of many patent cases that Microsoft and Motorola -- which is being acquired by Google -- are fighting in courtrooms from Seattle to Washington, D.C. to Germany.

This case is separate from another ITC case that Motorola had filed against Microsoft, alleging that Microsoft's Xbox gaming console infringes on five of Motorola's patents.

In that case, an ITC judge ruled last month that Microsoft infringes on four of those Motorola patents. That judge's decision is subject to a full six-member commission review before any import ban might be imposed.

Though the judge in that case had ruled that Microsoft infringed, he also said that Motorola's reassurances that it would license some of those patents -- which are industry standard patents -- on fair and reasonable terms were misleading.

The two companies are battling over industry-standards patents in several courts, including a federal court in Seattle.

I'm out of the office until Thursday, May 24. See you all back here then.

(This article is running in the print edition of The Seattle Times May 17, 2012. - Janet I. Tu)

When Facebook completes its initial public offering this week, Microsoft certainly will benefit financially.

At the high end, Facebook could be valued at up to $104 billion, which means Microsoft could see its original investment in Facebook grow in value from $240 million to up to $1.6 billion.

Microsoft, which now has a 1.8 percent stake in Facebook, is also planning to offer 6.6 million of its 33 million shares in the IPO. If valued at the high-end estimate of $38 per share, that means Microsoft would make some $250 million.

Not bad for what was a relatively small investment, for Microsoft, back in 2007.

But probably more important to Microsoft than the money is the partnership the two companies have built over the past six years. They've made mutually beneficial moves in the fight against their common competitor, Google.

"Facebook has been really valuable as a way for Microsoft to reach customers it couldn't get to otherwise," said Rob Helm, an analyst at independent research firm Directions on Microsoft. "It's an asset for Microsoft's business products as well."

The relationship between the two companies started with a 2006 deal in which Microsoft would sell banner advertising and sponsored links on Facebook. The two companies also agreed to work together on future technology initiatives.

Then, in 2007, Facebook accepted Microsoft's offer of $240 million to buy a 1.6 percent stake, reportedly choosing it over competing offers from Google and Yahoo.

That year, the partners expanded their advertising relationship, with Microsoft selling banner ads for Facebook overseas.

In 2010, Microsoft and Facebook announced a partnership to build social search in Bing. Since then, Microsoft has added Facebook features to Bing, including indicating when websites in search results are "liked" by the searcher's Facebook friends, indicating which pages within popular websites are "liked" by friends, and allowing users to link websites related to them in Bing search results.

In addition, Skype, a division of Microsoft since October, last year started allowing its users to conduct video chats with Facebook friends both on Skype and on Facebook.

Facebook, and other social networks, are also deeply integrated into Windows Phone.

Last month, Microsoft sold 650 patents that it had bought from AOL, along with rights to 275 more, to Facebook, a move thought to benefit Facebook in its patent battle with Yahoo, and to be boon for both Facebook and Microsoft in their fight against Google.

And last week, Microsoft announced its biggest-ever overhaul of Bing, which is slowly making inroads on the dominant Google. A major part of that overhaul? Facebook, one of several social-media networks whose content will be included in one of three columns in Bing's revamped search results page. (Google does not have Facebook data in its search results page, although it does include content from Google+, its own social-networking site.)

"Microsoft deserves some credit for recognizing pretty early on how important Facebook would be and maintaining that partnership for a long time," said Helm, the Directions on Microsoft analyst. "Business partnerships are like mayflies. This one has held up really well."

What makes Facebook such an enticing partner, Helm said, is that there are so many Facebook users out of reach to Google, Microsoft and others because certain privacy settings can make Facebook user information invisible on the public web.

Being able to get behind that Facebook "wall" to reach those users -- either for advertising or to engage them in trying products -- is what makes such a partnership so alluring.

There are also more subtle ways that the partnership has benefitted Microsoft, Helm says, citing technologies that Facebook has pioneered that are finding their way into Microsoft's business offerings.

For instance, although SharePoint, Microsoft's collaboration software for businesses, doesn't include Facebook itself, it has Facebook-like features, including activity feeds and status updates for co-workers.

"This is speculation but I think it's likely, in the future, there might be closer links," Helm said.

Though the two companies have had a close partnership so far, Microsoft -- and other Facebook partners -- may have to pay even more attention to what Facebook says once it goes public.

"Once Facebook has a $96 billion capitalization or whatever," Helm said, "it's going to be in a different weight class in terms of how it deals with all of its partners."

The Internet Explorer folks have teamed up with Fox Studios to create an interactive "training center" tied to the upcoming film "Prometheus."

"Prometheus," which hits theaters June 8, is set in the "Alien" universe and is directed by "Alien" director Ridley Scott. It centers on the crew of the spaceship Prometheus and clues to to humankind's beginnings.

The Internet Explorer team has created what it calls the Project Prometheus Training Center, "giving fans the chance to demonstrate they are capable of being a crew member on the Prometheus ship," according to the official Exploring IE blog.

The training center, designed entirely in HTML5, includes physical and cognitive assessment tests and the site will feature the tests' top performers each day.

The site can be accessed using any modern browser, though IE (of course) recommends IE 9.

You can access the site here.

A promo for "Prometheus," by the way, featuring actor Michael Fassbender as the robot David, is one of the most wonderfully creepy trailers I've seen this year. Have a look:

(Photo of Project Prometheus Training Center from Microsoft. Video of "Prometheus" promo from YouTube user Prometheus6812.)

Your living room television is becoming one of the most important sites in the next big consumer platform battle -- a battle that Microsoft is winning, according to research firm Forrester.

James McQuivey, a Forrester analyst, writes in his blog:

The TV battle is important for reasons you already know: TV consumes more time than anything else and it generates annual revenues from $140 to $160 billion each year in the US alone.

But the stakes of the battle have risen sharply. The fight over the TV is really a fight over the next massive consumer platform that is coming up for grabs.

Microsoft has more than 70 million Xbox consoles in households worldwide and its Xbox 360 is the most-watched Internet-connected TV device in the U.S., McQuivey notes, adding that, with so many consoles in households, "Microsoft can rapidly drive new video services into tens of millions of households."

He found that, currently, 32 million U.S. households watch online video on a TV set, up from 25 million last year -- many of them via a game console, especially the Xbox 360. More people use a game console to watch online video than use a set-top box that connects the TV to the Internet such Roku or Apple TV, he said.

McQuivey's full report can be found here (fee required).

The worldwide market share of Windows Phone, which has struggled to gain traction, fell in the first quarter this year, putting it behind Samsung's Bada operating system, which runs phones sold in international and emerging markets.

That's according to research firm Gartner, which says the share of smartphones running Microsoft's operating systems -- including Windows Phone and the outdated Windows Mobile -- fell from 2.6 percent in the first quarter of 2011 to 1.9 percent in the first quarter of 2012.

That puts Microsoft's smartphones in sixth place behind market leaders Android with 56.1 percent and Apple's iOS with 22.9 percent.

Here's Gartner's chart:

Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end users declined 2 percent from a year ago to 419.1 million units in the first quarter of 2012. But sales of smartphones grew 44.7 percent to 144.4 million units.

Among vendors, Nokia, which has a partnership with Microsoft in which the Finnish phonemaker uses primarily Windows Phone on its smartphones, saw its share of the smartphone market drop to 9.2 percent. (Its mobile handset sales decreased 22.7 percent from a year ago.)

Samsung was the No. 1 mobile handset and smartphone vendor, with 86.6 million units of mobile handsets sold and 38 million smartphones sold. Samsung's Android-based smartphones represented more than 40 percent of all Android-based smartphones sold worldwide, according to Gartner.

Here's Gartner's chart on sales by vendor:

The full report (fee required) is available at Gartner's website.