Windows 8 "Contracts" What's the Fuss Is All About

So I just heard about the upcoming "contracts" concept for future versions of Microsoft products (the contracts will probably get propagated at least partially into virtually all Microsoft products like Windows Phone, XBox, Tablet OS versions etc). The general idea seems to be that various applications will be able to share data and communicate otherwise not really disclosing too much about their functionality.

It is exciting news yeah, but why does it so painfully reminds me of Android "intents" system? To me it is exactly the same. Although some sources say it has some ideas similar to what former Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie’s proposed as the “universal clipboard” concept — dating back to 2006. I still find it hard to see how this is different from Android's intents system. It would be interesting to watch who sues who over that if at all. The huge piles of patents Google and Microsoft have do not make much sense to go to war over this.

It is interesting though to see how one of the most important features/ideas of Android OS gets propagated into other operating systems.