Slashdot Mirror
Nokia Sues Apple For Patent Infringement In iPhone
AVee writes "Engadget (amongst many others) reports that Nokia is suing Apple because the iPhone infringes on 10 Nokia patents related to GSM, UTMS and WiFi. While the press release doesn't contain much detail, it does state that Apple didn't agree to 'appropriate terms for Nokia's intellectual property,' which sounds like there have been negotiations about those patents."
I wonder how many of those same patents are included in the Linux based Maemo OS that the N900 has.
What exactly does that mean? If you have patents on some technology, but then release a device that implements them with code that's GPL V2 licensed? Does it mean that anyone can now use those patents royalty free as long as they use the gpl'd code? Or does it somehow invalidate them? Would GPL V3 change the situation appreciably?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
If Nokia couldn't sue Apple, they certainly wouldn't have developed the technology to make phones they could sell. They certainly need longer than a year to break even on their investment before Apple could use the tech to sell more phones to the public. There's no way Apple and Nokia would work together to develop a technology they could both use in their phones, if their competitors could use it after several months work adapting it to their own products. Patents must be granted for any length of time, no matter how much profit that "temporary" artificial government-enforced monopoly makes while locking the invention out from use by the maximum number of people.
Right? No, that doesn't seem right to me, either.
--
make install -not war
I don't know... If you read the quote (copy&paste from BBC website):
"The basic principle in the mobile industry is that those companies who contribute in technology development to establish standards create intellectual property, which others then need to compensate for," said Ilkka Rahnasto, vice president of Legal & Intellectual Property at Nokia.
"Apple is also expected to follow this principle."
It seems that is more of a 'gentlemen agreement' thing.
I am not a native English speaker, though.
Pumbaa! I don't wonder; I know.
Because otherwise it would be crap? We're not even talking about sound compression algorithms here, but stuff that needs serious R&D. You think >10Mbps downlink for your phone comes for free?
Think about it this way: would you rather have a patented standard everyone contributes to or have Nokia and Samsung privately decide on something they'll use together and shut everyone else out?
My Sig: SEGV
Apple's R&D investment is far below industry average, and most of that is "D", not "R". Apple essentially doesn't publish and doesn't support university research. If all companies were as stingy as Apple when it comes to R&D, computer science research would be in deep trouble. Nokia, on the other hand, has the largest R&D investment in Europe, many times that of Apple.
Apple can only make nice products because other companies and universities have invested a hell of a lot of money and time inventing the things that Apple then assembles into products. That model is not sustainable, and I can see why companies like Nokia are getting litigious over it.
There is sort of a hope out there that most voters will remain above the fray, but in practice this is a misplaced hope most of the time.
most of the time the people sent to the standards are paid specifically to get what are called "fundamental patents" into the standard. That is where you have patented one particular way to do something (we do remember patents are about methods, not objectives) and you manage to get the standard to say that it will be done in the way your patent says it will be done.
this is basically a fun drinking game. You sit there for hours stoney faced saying "no" all day for the first day and explaining deep technical reasons why your competition's patent won't work in this sitation. Then in the evening you go out and get seriously drunk. Whilst drunk you start trading off what things each person really wants to get in to the standard. Then the next day, those who can still remember what was said get their way with the standard and only serious and proper persuasive arguments combined with good blackmail drinking photos are allowed to change the agreements of the previous night on pain of ostracism.
In telecomms standards this isn't even particularly immoral since the companies playing are all big boys who can take it. In the example before us we have Apple; about 9 on a scale of 1 to 10 for "intellectual property" evil and Nokia (about 7 or 9 but with a tendancy towards 10). Remember Apple is the company which inspired the League for Programming freedom. In fact Apple is arguably worse than Microsoft (has done more in practice; but doesn't go in for unsubtle bully boy threats) and is only clearly less Evil than Qualcomm (rates 15 on our earlier scale of 1 to 10).
Whilst I'm definitely anti software patent, and strongly believe in controlling the influence of other patents, this is a lawsuit happening to a company that really really had it coming to them.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
You pointed out the most likely situation. Of those 40 companies some are chip makers, OEMs, tower builders, and telcos. What you get is a "triple dipping" situation where the "club" is demanding royalties from each part of the process. Chip maker has to have a patent for the "chip", OEM has to have a patent for the chip attached to an antenna using software, Tower builder has to have a patent to send and receive the signal, Telco has to have a patent to route the signal. Even though you have paid a patent on the "chip" that does everything and you put one at both ends, it doesn't count because you don't have the "whole" license... only the chipmaker's right to "build" the chip. You need to pay again to USE the chip.... This is how MP3 keeps being the undead patent zombie. They want to you pay to be "in the club" then you don't have to worry about such "technicalities" but then you usually have to cross-license ALL your stuff to get in.
Apple most likely went directly to Broadcom and AT&T and cross-licensed with just those two players to share the patents they had access to (and added another 100 just for iPhone). Now Nokia is upset the other two players are letting Apple in without "joining the club" first. It's all a game of contracts that were for "joining the club" but have loopholes all over that you have to play ball only with the club and certain players get "more fair" treatment than others.
With all due respect, your statistic does not support your claim. "R&D to sales" is a measure of the effectiveness of a company's effort to convert R&D into sales. ... That claim has been refuted in the grandparent to this post
Oh, stop drinking the magic cool-aid and distorting reality. Apple's R&D investment is low in absolute numbers, relative to sales, and relative to company size. And Apple's research output is essentially non-existent by any objective measure.
Now you want to divorce the "R" from the "D"
I have consistently pointed out that Apple invests in "D" but almost nothing in "R".
Need I remind you that Apple basically invented the home computer, basically invented the PDA, and has recently completely re-energized the smartphone industry? Those accomplishments have had obvious penumbral effects.
Apple did none of those things. All their major products were copies of technologies and devices invented elsewhere, and Apple has gotten into trouble and disrepute over that more than once.
If you want to argue that Apple is doing a disservice to the world of technology, you need a better yardstick than "papers published".
I'm only pointing out that Nokia's lawsuit is consistent and plausible with what we know about Apple's actual R&D strategy.