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Microsoft Sues Motorola Over Android-Related Patent Infringement
suraj.sun writes with this excerpt from Engadget:
"Microsoft has hit up the ITC over a total of nine alleged patent infringements by Motorola in its Android devices, specifically relating to 'synchronizing email, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power.' This should be interesting — will it result in a quick cross-licensing agreement, or a protracted court battle spanning multiple years?"
The ITC complaint was accompanied by a lawsuit in US District Court. Microsoft's Horacio Gutierrez explained the company's reasoning in a blog post.
It's great to see the USS Microsoft sinking after all these years.
On to bigger and better things!
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Translation:
We're no longer relevant in this market but we own some patents so we're going to screw as much money out of innovators as we can.
I still want to know how the fuck you can patent checking email or checking battery strength? Or well all this chit is just stuff a guy living in a bubble and suddenly told to make a wireless phone that goes on the internet would think to add himself if he wasn't a moron.. I mean..FUCK
This is yet more proof that software patents are stupid.
Wow, one story about how Microsoft says you should develop a Windows 7 phone so that you're safe from patent lawsuits immediately followed by a story about MS suing an Android developer for patent infringement. I think maybe someone in MS PR department needs to read up on the definition of subtlety.
I hope Motorola doesn't agree to any settlement like HTC. best for this to go to court to clear android
There may not be much mobile love between Google and Apple, but I'm quite sure that neither one wants Microsoft to win anything in such a market.
After all, if Microsoft wins this one, what's to stop them from contriving other overly-broad patents against Apple's iPhone at the first convenient moment?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Hmm .. let's see. HTC, Samsung, LG and Moto make Android phones. HTC, Samsung, and LG also make WinMo (sorry ... WP7) phones as well.
I can't imagine Moto's differentiating factor between all the other handset manufacturers are the only bits that MS has issue with. (Anyways, isn't it all just skinning on top of Google's Android?!)
Soooo, this must be a "screw you" for no longer making WinMo phones?
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
In the past Microsoft was the one screwing over its "partner" and stealing mobile phone technology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sendo
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/01/06/microsofts_masterplan_to_screw_phone/
So having based their smartphone stuff on stolen tech, they're now turning round claiming other people are stealing their tech ?
Oddly enough, it looks like Motorola were the ones who ended up with the Sendo tech.
Microsoft's reasoning is simple: We're going to get our asses kicked by Android in the mobile market, so we're going to use our vast resources to try to destroy yet another superior product. This is standard Microsoft business practice. So shameful.
MS: Get our mobile OS - it's good, it'll protect you from lawsuits.
All: Protect us? From who?
MS: Us, mostly...
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
It's interesting that you'd advocate for a quick and easy surrender, when in fact Microsoft may not even have a case (or even valid patents). Smells like FUD, circa 2003.
If Google came out swinging, no sweat - the devs (like everyone else) will figure that it'll settle anyway, and barring injunctions (unlikely), business will continue as usual.
You know? If IBM took the attitude that you're advocating, we'd all be paying some jackass in Utah $700/seat for Linux.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
It's because the lawyers are running the show, and they win every time this stuff happens, no matter which side wins, the lawyers still get rich.
Let's think about this one. A big-shot at Microsoft tries to explain what's going on RE: a patent suit they're bringing against a competitor. Remember: it's a patent suit here.
Gutierrez:
People use smartphones for much more as well: they surf the web, play music and videos, and run apps.
They do a lot of common activities, yes.
Consumers expect more and more from their smartphones every day, making their phones resemble not so much a phone as a handheld computer.
So really, their smart phones are acting like ordinary computers, right? So perhaps we could imagine their phones in that same problem space, as they are, according to Mr. Gutierrez, basically computers.
Of course, for certain apps to run efficiently on handheld devices, they must be notified of changes in signal strength and battery power and the device must manage memory for storing data.
Of course! I mean, I and the rest of us people with tech backgrounds totally agree with you! Just as in other domains like pagers, heart monitors, etc..., it would make perfect sense that for other small, mobile devices, things like managing power or signal strength would be relevant and important for the end user to know about.
I mean, any one of us people well-versed in the field of technology would probably come up with something similar to what you did. I mean, "of course" we would!
Given the wide range of functionality smartphones offer, they also need to be able to display relevant choices for users efficiently. Microsoft’s patented technologies tackle all of these challenges.
Maybe Microsoft's patents read on some of this technology, but it sure sounds like you're trying to convince us exactly how necessary and obvious the content of these patents are in the context of computers, and I have to ask: Are you trying to win this case, or sink it?
coding is life
from the linked Microsoft blog post:
"we’ve spent over 30 years developing cutting-edge computer software."
hmm... personally, I feel that they've spent 15+ of those years abusing a monopoly thus sabotaging competition and reducing innovation. If theirs can be called innovation it's only because they cut everyone else off at the knees with legal tactics and illegal marketing manoeuvres.
Didn't someone just post in the thread about Microsoft's indemnification promise that no one had ever sued a handset maker for patent infringement?
I read that post too. It said that no one had ever successfully sued a handset maker who used Linux systems for patent infringement. That remains true unless Microsoft prevails in this suit.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I do thank you for that, kind sir.
However, I don't believe in karma. If such thing existed (the way it's understood in the West, which is the context in which we are speaking), Microsoft would have been bankrupt long ago, along with Monsanto, the RIAA and MPAA companies... and many, many politicians and executives would have had the equivalent happen to them.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Its interesting how companies spout out capitalist philosophy based arguments against laws when it benefits them, but are quick to use non-capitalist strategies to edge the competition out.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
This smells like a desperation move of someone who tries to solve every problem with marketing. Buy our products because they are better? Nope, buy them out of fear. Stupid. My guess is ballmer is in the process of being forced out of microsoft.
Holy shit!
I didn't think this
http://mobile.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1805678&cid=33762968
would become reality so fast
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
You know what PATENT means?
Patent
Attorney
Trust
&
ENrichment
Tool
5,579,517 "Common Name Space for Long and Short File Names"
5,758,352 "Common Name Space for Long and Short File Names"
So, these two are the the infamous FAT patents.
6,621,746 "Monitoring Entropic Conditions of a Flash Memory Device as an Indicator for Invoking Erasure Operations"
Defrag applied to flash, really that deserve a patent?
6,826,762 "Radio Interface Layer in a Cell Phone with a Set of APIs Having a Hardware-Independent Proxy Layer and a Hardware-Specific Driver Layer"
Hmmm layering an API so that you have an invariant user space API and hardware driver portion. Seems like the kind of thing every OS does.
6,909,910 "Method and System for Managing Changes to a Contact Database"
Really!?!? I wonder how if my first year CS course work violates this patent.
7,644,376 "Flexible Architecture for Notifying Applications of State Changes"
Hmmmm... a publish/subscriber notification protocol, no that has never been done before.
5,664,133 "Context Sensitive Menu System/Menu Behavior"
Ha, Ha, Ha Context sensitive menus! I could have sworn I have seen things like that for the last 20 years or so.
6,578,054 "Method and System for Supporting Off-line Mode of Operation and Synchronization Using Resource State Information"
Hmmm... patenting persistent state storage as part of a synchronization process. Hmmmm... I wonder if any of the hash based synchronizer I have built in the past would infringe.
6,370,566 "Generating Meeting Requests and Group Scheduling from a Mobile Device"
Oh, doing it from a mobile device makes it so much more unique.
They are all garbage patents and if Motorola decides to fight versus cross licensing, I don't believe they will hold up.
So apple/RIM/MS/Google/Motorola/HTC are all in lawsuits against each other?
Why oh why didn't I get a law degree?
In other words, the only ones who are going to win in all this stupidity are the lawyers.
Actually it's been more like 20-25 years of that sort of thing...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Windows Phone 7 is not the patsy that Windows Mobile was. It's a threat. Nobody with a Windows Mobile device is dreading an upgrade to a competitive phone.
Businesses normally don't like spending money for no reason. Many of them that currently have Windows Mobile phone will not like having to spend money on new versions of their current apps. Also they cannot upgrade their current phones to Windows 7. So that gives them no incentive to stay with Windows. They have to buy new apps and get new phones so then it offers no advantage to Windows. That puts it on par with Blackberry.
Couple that with the emphasis that Microsoft has put on Windows 7 Phone being a consumer not a corporate phone. So a brand new phone OS has fewer corporate features than their previous phone. While Blackberry is rolling out more corporate features. Gee, which one will corporations buy?
Name me one other mobile provider that has corporate development support already built into major corporations.
As I said before Windows 7 Phone is focused on the consumer market. It does not matter how much lip service MS pays to having a corporate development environment if corporations are not going to buy Windows 7 phones for their employees because it does not have the features that they need. At best only corporations that develop apps might be interested in Windows 7.
Windows Mobile was a place holder. Windows Phone 7 is a game changer.
So far the market the kept Windows Mobile alive has been the corporate market. And MS is throwing it away for the consumer market. But from what I've seen of Windows 7, they are years behind Apple and Android. Heck, they are years behind WebOS. What do you base this belief that they will be a game changer when the game passed them by years ago?
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Word, Office, Excel, Outlook, Access, Powerpoint, DOS, BASIC, Internet Explorer, Visual Studio, SourceSafe, Windows NT, NTFS.
What do all the above and and many more have in common? None of them were originally developed by Microsoft. Most were acquired by buying other companies. Some, like IE(Core rendering engine was Spyglass Mosaic) Windows NT(Core OS was the same as OS/2 developed by IBM) and NTFS (slight modification of HPFS from IBM), were acquired in licensing deals where Microsoft was not always honest about their intentions.
No, BASIC was not created by Microsoft, it existed before Microsoft did, but the company that created it was bought out really early on by Microsoft. Any technology that was invented by a company that Microsoft buys out they claim as their own invention as they now own the company and usually the people that created the technology.
That being said, they did create Win16 and Win32. ADO was a really good idea that they got right the first time, then messed up up, then fixed it, messed it up again and I think have finally fixed it. Works I believe is completely Microsoft. DirectX was a Microsoft project that Microsoft was against originally.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.