Mark Bridge writes:

It’s Easter, but that’s not stopped the mobile phone industry from generating plenty of news stories.

Let’s start with partnerships. Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom - which already work together as Everything Everywhere in the UK – have now agreed to combine their procurement activities for customer equipment, network equipment, service platforms and IT infrastructure. Yes, even these two telecoms giants can save money with group buying!

Nokia and Microsoft have signed their partnership agreement today. The planned partnership was first announced in February.

The two companies say they've made "significant progress" on the development of the first Nokia products incorporating the Windows Phone platform. Nokia has also started porting key applications and services to operate on Windows Phone.

The Microsoft Tag 'colour barcode' is reported to have had its best month since launching in January 2009. More than 50% more tag scans took place in March 2011 than in any other month so far.

Microsoft says the number of scans per month has doubled over the past three months, while the number of users per month has increased 2.5 times in the same period.

Microsoft says its 'copy and paste' update for Windows Phone 7 - the first big software update for the platform - was released on Tuesday. The first phones to be updated will be those that aren’t customised for a specific mobile network operator.

The update adds copy & paste functionality to WP7 smartphones...

Microsoft is taking legal action against Barnes & Noble for patent infringement by its 'Nook' Android-based eBook reader. The action also includes device manufacturers Foxconn International Holdings and Inventec Corporation. It follows last year's patent agreement that covered HTC mobile phones running the Android platform.

The disputed patents cover a number of functions in the Android user interface.