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Summarizing the Apple-Android Patent Battle
FlorianMueller writes "Apple's patent dispute with Motorola is one of the biggest legal battles going on at the moment. Apple, which is also entangled in litigation with Nokia and HTC, recently beefed up its legal team, but it also keeps throwing in ever more patents. Apple made important court filings last Wednesday and Thursday. The bottom line: Apple now asserts 24 patents against Motorola, which uses 18 patents in claims against Apple. 21 of Apple's infringement allegations relate to Android, 3 to Motorola set-top boxes and DVRs. Motorola targets the whole range of Apple products."
Mueller followed up the above article with an excellent visualization of how the patents, companies, and courts intersect.
It's all about establishing a nasty, thick web of patents not covered by RAND to raise the barrier to entry impossibly high.
This is why I criticize Apple's walled garden, despite not owning one. They're very, very interested in making impossible for those of us who don't want to buy in to actually have a choice.
Apple lost just about their entire claim against Nokia, when half the patents they were seeking to enforce were declared invalid by the FTC, and the rest dismissed as not being infringed.
It would be interesting to see Apple now try to enforce those patents declared invalid against Motorola et al.
This all started when Apple refused to pay consortium of GSM patent holders fees that all other GSM manufacturers subscribe to, some how feeling the were above the law.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
There was some confusion out there about the ITC staff (Office of Unfair Import Investigations, OOUI) report, and this quote from your post reflects them:
No.
1. As I explained in this recent blog post, Apple's ITC assertions against Nokia were split into two parts. The staff report that the press reported on in early December related to only 4 of the 10 patents Apple originally asserted against Nokia.
2. That staff opinion is just an opinion, not a definitive dismissal. My Apple vs. Android chart does mention that some patents were dropped from the ITC cases between Apple and HTC: on pages 8 ("Move #7 - Apple drops 4 patents from ITC complaint against HTC") and 10 ("Move #9 -- HTC drops 1 patent from ITC complaint against Apple"). But the instances I mention in my chart were definitive partial terminations of those cases. The ITC staff opinion published a month ago on one Apple v. Nokia case is not definitive. It's an opinion and the ITC's Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) can agree or disagree with it. There have been many cases already in which the ALJ judge took decisions that were very different from the staff reports. I've seen a long list of cases in which the staff then actually appealed the ALJ's decision, which is clear evidence that decisions deviate from those staff reports quite often. The staff report is an opinion, and I don't mean to downplay the importance of the staff and its reports, but that is just not a dismissal of claims (let alone the invalidation of patents).
3. Even if some patents lost before the ITC, they might (as my blog post mentioned under item 1 explains) still be enforced in a US federal district court. My chart makes that distinction in connection with the patents dropped from ITC cases. HTC's '183 patent is grayed-out from Move #9 on because it was only asserted in the ITC so far and they withdrew it. By contrast, Apple's '867, '131, '852 and RE'486 patents were only dropped from an ITC complaint but Apple does enforce them against Motorola now in a federal district court, so the patents are still alive.
4. The chart this article refers to is purely about Apple vs. Motorola and Apple v. HTC. I'm going to do the same visualization for the Apple-Nokia conflict as well but it will be a separate document because otherwise things would become too complex to fit in a single chart. In fact, I already have that one in place for the most part, so it will become available pretty soon. (Also for Microsoft vs. Motorola and Oracle vs. Google, by the way.)
The RAND thing only applies to GSM forum members. Apple has refused to join the GSM forum. Nokia can add any conditions they like.
Motorola knew apple were suing already, how do you think apple counter-sued so quickly, and then amended it with more complaints later in reaction to the suit motorola put forth.
Nokia tried for years to work with apple in regards to patents (the iphone uses many many of nokias patents mainly to do with 3g and other wireless business), apple went fuck you to nokia thus the patent battle.
Apple is the one playing hardball here, they are doing what any profit driven company does, tries to force the competition out, by any means possible.
Apple refused to share with Nokia and the other members of the GSM Alliance, so Nokia told them what the terms were to license those patents if you don't want to share. Apple protested these terms as being unfair and anti-competitive as Apple wanted the same terms as those who were willing to share without offering anything in return.
Apple wants to use everyones technology without having to pay for it while refusing to share their own technology with those they are taking from.