ITC Investigates Xbox 360 After Motorola Complaint

FlorianMueller writes "The US International Trade Commission, which is increasingly popular as a patent enforcement agency, voted to investigate a complaint filed by Motorola against Microsoft last month. Motorola claims that the Xbox infringes five of its patents. In October, Microsoft complained against Motorola, alleging patent infringement by its Android-based smartphones. Apple, Nokia and HTC are also involved with ITC investigations as complainants and respondents. A new one-page overview document shows the ongoing ITC investigations related to smartphones and the products that the complainants would like to have banned from entry into the US market. The good news is that any import bans won't be ordered until long after Christmas. The ITC is faster than courts, but not that fast."

Comments

Patents are terrible for the little guy

[BadAnalogyGuy]

While patents, on the one hand, provide a measured amount of protection against aggressive and litigious competitors, they are only useful in bulk. This leaves many little guys hamstrung and at the whim of big guys like Motorola and Microsoft. Here we see to goliaths go at each other, and it's interesting because both sides have deep patent portfolios that they can wield against each other. The ultimate solution will be some sort of cross licensing deal, no doubt.

But for the little guy, a company like Microsoft can extinguish in short order due to a limited amount of leverage. Where Moto can respond with a set of infringed patents, the little guy won't have that type of MAD defensive position. As a result, the big guys get bigger, and the little guys get snuffed, and the consumers get screwed.

Patents were meant to foster competition and promote a plethora of ideas. It has not done that at all in the software sphere. Perhaps it is time to rethink the whole software patent system.

Re:Patents are terrible for the little guy

[grantek]

Part of the problem is that one patented idea/process/implementation isn't enough to do anything in today's world - a system like a game console or smartphone is built on thousands of patentable components.

Re:Patents are terrible for the little guy

[Charliemopps]

That's why a patent should be for a finished product and not the components and processes used to make it. Patents exist to ensure the inventor can make a profit off his invention... they should not exist to lock away a device in perpetuity so that only some giant conglomerate that bought the patent 3rd hand can milk future inventors of their profits. The current patent system works to retard progress, not promote it. All patents should be for an actual working device and should last no more than 10 years. Genes, Chemicals and other natural elements should not be patentable.

Re:Patents are terrible for the little guy

[AlecC]

Patents exist to motivate inventors to invent, and then to put the inventions into the public domain after a due period.

Would any of these companies have decided not to develop their phones, and hence do the R&D that led to these patents, if there had been no patent system? I very much doubt it. And the fact that the other companies are, allegedly, infringing means that the first inventor has not been able to keep it secret - or, as is often the case, the idea was "in the air" as a result of the way the industry was developing.

The patent system is severely broken for the IT industry as it now is. For the industry as a whole, it is a zero sum game: no R&D is being done because the developer hopes to profit from license fees. On the contrary, it is a burden because to the time and effort filing patents, the effort of working around other people's patents, and the cost of fighting patent wars or negotiating patent armistices. Of course, interested parties (patent lawyers, including trolls, and the Patent Offices, insist that it is invaluable. But show me an engineer who would not like the whole thing swept away. (I speak only for the IT industry, though I think it apples much more widely).

Re:Patents are terrible for the little guy

[Lumpy]

One click.

Amazon.com would have went bankrupt 30 years ago without it.

Re:upnp? wmv-vp9?

[hairyfeet]

Yeah not to mention thanks to MSFT forming a patent bloc with Apple AND Oracle, plus those 882 patents from Novell MSFT will in all likelihood run over Motorola like a Mac truck. Sure Motorola has been in the game for quite awhile, But Novell wrote the book when it comes to networking and what device that Motorola manufacturers today DOESN'T use networking?

So if Motorola is smart they'll be looking to settle this, and quick. MSFT can afford to drag things on for years, the patents owned by the bloc with Apple and Oracle probably cover a good 90% of the products Motorola makes, which means if it goes bad for Motorola it'll go REAL bad. While I hate all the patent warchests, patent trolls, venue shopping, and other crap that goes along with it, a company whose products rely on networking stirring up the shit around MSFT after they just bought pretty much the entire patent portfolio of one of the founders of modern networking seems like a seriously bad idea. Better to settle before it gets too nasty.

Patent Chess

[Fraggy_the_undead]

To me it seems more and more like these companies with their huge patent pools are bored and now play a game against each other.
company1: "Hey company2, I hold a patent vaguely describing what you do with product X"
company2: "Hey company1, I have two patents even more vaguely describing what you do with product Y"
company3: "Hey both of you, I hold ten patents that you both infringe on"
company1: "Oh yeah, well guess what, I have twelve other patents, that ..."
...Ad infinitum...
It's getting ridiculus...

Re:Patent Chess

[imthesponge]

It's really not possible to "invent" anything anymore as an individual. You'll inevitably violate some company's patent. You need your own war chest of patents to defend yourself.

Heinlein springs to mind

[symbolset]

There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such a profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is supported by neither statute or common law. Neither corporations or individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.

Robert A Heinlein, Life-Line, 1939.

Re:Well

[symbolset]

This is what happens when you sue Motorola over Cellular phone software patents. Motorola invented, among other things, the Cellular phone. They have tens of thousands of patents in real hardware. They haven't been playing this game because they're civilized and gracious. But if you're going to get that stupid, they're ready to take you to school. In the end this is going to rank in the top ten of the dumbest things Microsoft has ever done - probably above acquiring Danger, Inc.

Re:upnp? wmv-vp9?

[sgtrock]

Sure Motorola has been in the game for quite awhile, But Novell wrote the book when it comes to networking and what device that Motorola manufacturers today DOESN'T use networking?

Seen many IPX/SPX networks around lately? No? I thought not.

The facts are that (a) Novell came late to the networking game (TCP/IP, Banyan Vines, NetBEUI, SNA, X.25, and others predate Novell's offering) and (b) lost the networking battle about 20 years ago. Therefore, any networking patents that Novell has or had are probably useless.

I'll stipulate that Novell may actually have patents on applications running on top of TCP/IP, but I doubt that those are ones that have much of an impact on wireless as that wasn't their business. I just can't see Novell spending much in the way of R&D in this arena.

Side note: I think software patents are an abomination in the first place. I'd love to see some common sense from SCOTUS and see these things declared invalid. Not holding my breath, though.