Google is seeking to reassure technology standards groups that it won’t misuse Motorola’s patent portfolio to extract unreasonable licensing fees for patents deemed “standard-essential” if its $12.5 billion acquisition of the mobile phone giant is approved by regulators.

Microsoft — which is facing the prospect of paying Motorola as much as 2.25 percent of sales on Windows, Xbox and other products that use the H.264 and 802.11 video and WiFi standards — today issued a statement of its own, outlining its support for industry standards and implicitly contrasting its position with Motorola’s approach.

“The international standards system works well because firms that contribute to standards promise to make their essential patents available to others on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms,” Microsoft says in a post on its site. “Consumers and the entire industry will suffer if, in disregard of this promise, firms seek to block others from shipping products on the basis of such standard essential patents.”

Microsoft says it will “always adhere to the promises it has made to standards organizations to make its standard essential patents available on fair, reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms,” and that it “will not seek an injunction or exclusion order against any firm on the basis of those essential patents.”

Microsoft has been getting sizeable royalties from makers of Android devices, but the patents in the company’s case against Barnes & Noble, for example, aren’t considered standard-essential.

Google told Bloomberg News yesterday that it would license Motorola’s standard-essential patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms.

“Since we announced our agreement to acquire Motorola Mobility last August, we’ve heard questions about whether Motorola Mobility’s standard-essential patents will continue to be licensed on FRAND terms once we’ve closed this transaction,” a spokeswoman told the news service. “The answer is simple: They will.”

A ruling from European regulators on Google’s Motorola acquisition is expected later this month. If it goes through, the Motorola case against Microsoft could serve as an early litmus test for that pledge.

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