Microsoft Continues Android Legal Assault

shmlco writes "According to an article on AllThingsD, Microsoft is continuing its legal assault on Android. On Monday the company sued Barnes & Noble, Foxconn International and Inventec over the company's Nook e-reader, alleging patent infringement. To quote Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez, 'The Android platform infringes a number of Microsoft's patents, and companies manufacturing and shipping Android devices must respect our intellectual property rights. Their refusals to take licenses leave us no choice but to bring legal action.'"

Comments

Not Microsoft's Fault

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when you institutionalize bribery in government. If our politicians weren't so easy to bribe, and the voters weren't so stupid this would not be an issue.

Garbage in, garbage out. And Americans vote for corrupt garbage.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[WrongSizeGlass]

Yeah, and if women weren't so easy to rape then rape wouldnt' be an issue either.. it's clearly the women's fault.

A 'rape' analogy is never appropriate.

What, you couldn't come up with "if cars weren't so easy to steal then grand theft auto wouldn't be an issue either ... it's clearly the car's fault"?

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Merk42]

Bribery does require consent between the two parties, but the third party (the consumer) is the one getting raped.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[hairyfeet]

Oh please! Isn't this what the FOSS community has been wanting for years? Haven't all the FOSS guys said 'if MSFT has patents lets see them"? Well here you go, now it is up to the courts to ultimately decide.

Now personally I've always thought software patents are a BAD IDEA in giant 50 foot neon letters since we all stand on the shoulders of giants and all software comes down to math anyway, so it basically lets good math implementations get locked up by whomever gets to the USPTO first.

But on the other hand I've seen dickish behavior by BOTH sides such as everyone cheering TomTom even though MSFT offered them the same RAND license for FAT32 they offer everyone else and got the finger even though they did invent the bloody thing. And RAND is something we should support, as RAND makes tech available without making it a barrier to enter which is how we got the name RAND in the first place Reasonable And Non Discriminatory.

So maybe it is better this way, just let the courts sort it all out so that then either Linux developers can pay some RAND license and never have to deal with whatever the patents cover again, find a way around it even it if doesn't work as well like Theora, or just throw out everything that is covered and find new ways of doing it.

But if MSFT just files lawsuits against Linux for every patent they think is infringing then FOSS guys can't scream FUD! and can finally look at the patents in question while the courts sort the whole mess out. Seems like whichever side you're on (and personally I don't really HAVE a side on this one, since I use Windows on the desktop, Linux on the server, and dumbphones so that I can just get bloody calls instead of waiting for a battery to recharge) you should be happy that this mess is finally gonna get sorted out.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[Daniel Phillips]

Not Microsoft's Fault

Nothing is ever Microsoft's fault, according to Microsoft.

Re:Not Microsoft's Fault

[fwarren]

Things like this often settle out of court with neither parter admitting they did anything wrong. Thus the racket and be perpetrated again. I don't think Microsoft really has 240 patents that will stand up in court. To bad all it takes is 1.

IF they hold the patents

[amiga3D]

Why is it that if they hold the patents for what the android phones are doing, then why didn't they make a decent phone themselves to start with? How is it that google took their intellectual property they dreamed up and made something so much better than their own crap?

Re:IF they hold the patents

[oGMo]

Ideas are easy, implementation is hard. MS allegedly has some pieces of paper that say "we thought of this first! you can't use my idea!" Google has an actual piece of software that works pretty well. If patents worked at all like they should, MS could only patent their actual implementation of something, not the mere concept itself.

Re:IF they hold the patents

[MobyDisk]

This is why patents are supposed to only cover implementations, not ideas.

SCO anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

SCO didn't die in vain, they were just sacrificed to make this kind of insane posturing and attitude of corporate entitlement seem normal. We got most of our shock at those tactics out of the way over the years McBride & Co attacked Linux, clearing the path for bigger fish, like Microsoft, to publicly act the same without as much backlash.

Good marketing effort. Idiots.

Re:SCO anyone?

[_Sprocket_]

SCO didn't die in vain, they were just sacrificed to make this kind of insane posturing and attitude of corporate entitlement seem normal. We got most of our shock at those tactics out of the way over the years McBride & Co attacked Linux, clearing the path for bigger fish, like Microsoft, to publicly act the same without as much backlash.

Good marketing effort. Idiots.

I'm not sure it's that way. Microsoft put together the play book and placed it out there for someone to follow. SCO picked it up and ran with it. But not many others did. So the question then becomes whether SCO was the over-the-top publicity event to dull our senses or whether Microsoft is being forced to run their own plays since nobody else is.

Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[SerpentMage]

While I am uneasy about patents, a case for truly innovative products can be made. But this is not innovation. This is patenting whatever one can. Like:

Enable display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;

You have got to be effen kidding me. That's a patent? Who was the bonehead that thought something like that is innovation?

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[tomhudson]

Enable display of a webpage's content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;

My old 14.4k internet connection and Netscape Navigator 2.0 are prior art.

Re:Wow REALLY Bad Patents

[somersault]

It's kind of funny that they think they can patent "natural ways of interacting" too..

Please don't say that.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's an insult to the gay niggers!

Dear Microsoft....

[blind biker]

For a very short period it seemed to the more gullible among us, that you're starting to be a decent company. Thankfully, you've show in no uncertain way that you have not changed, and are still that douchebag bully in dire need to be body-slammed on concrete. I hope that one day it finally happens.

Re:Dear Microsoft....

[straponego]

Give them a break. It must be hard to admit that they absolutely cannot compete by giving customers value; that they are totally incapable of delivering products that customers want; and that they have no intention of ever attempting to create products which equal or surpass those of their competitors; and that the only way they can think of to remain in business is to waste everybody's time and money through extortion.

Me, I'd find that embarrassing.

microsoft is saying win7 mobile is not as good

[Dan667]

makes me want to buy an Android Phone even more if they think theirs cannot even compete in the marketplace.

RAND doesn't work for FLOSS

[Benanov]

RAND doesn't work for FLOSS projects because "reasonable" is in terms of "reasonable fee" and non-discriminatory is "same price to all comers" so while it didn't present a barrier to entry when it was dreamed up, it does to FLOSS where a fee is never charged.

The inability for FLOSS to work with RAND patent licensing is why MPEG is thinking of moving to FRAND - F being Free as in Beer.