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Nortel Patents Go To Apple, Microsoft, Sony and Others
tcr writes "A consortium that includes Apple, Microsoft, RIM and Sony has been successful in its bid for the Nortel patent portfolio. The winning bid was $4.5 billion. TechCrunch predicts this could result in a slew of lawsuits directed at Android, but also suggests that the deal will likely receive scrutiny from the U.S. courts."
Only company from the list that I worry about is Apple. They're really been left and right everyone about patent issues. Microsoft, not so much, unless some patent troll has attacked them first. Same goes for RIM. Sony is bad in other fronts, they're not really suing for patent issues. But Apple has been handling their patent related issues really dirty, dumping thousand+ page sues, trying to enforce ban on competitor products and in their developer agreement for iPhone/iPad they require all software developers to give away their ideas to Apple when submitting their application - after which they can decide if to accept or reject the app and maybe implement it themselves. Like when Apple ripped off an wireless sync app made by a one guy.
While their liquidation has been a protracted affair, Nortel supposedly wound down most of its operations in 2009 in order to focus on legal and financial shenanigans. Presumably, then, their newest patents were probably applied for then, granted now-ish, and the bulk of them (one naively assumes) would have been filed back when the company was healthier and doing more R&D spending.
How close to expiration are the patents being purchased here?
I patent everything in this day and age. I'm hoping someday that they will be my retirement fund.
Wait ... that's quite a bit ... does that mean I might be getting some severence pay after all?
Patnts are an artifact of your imagination.
Just like constitutional rights. So?
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
Two weeks from now, there will be a deal between this consortium and Google that licences all of those patents. Just watch. They need to recoup all that money from somewhere, and Google has too much dough to not licence it.
Also, this means that there will probably be lots of good competition among the consortium (at least, we can hope). All of those companies are competing with each other. It would have been good to see Google in that bunch, though. At that point, this entire patent portfolio would become a de facto standard, and developers can make a certain number of assumptions, which is always good for cross-platform development. Not sure what all that would affect, though, as I'm not sure what all patents are in there.
The only down side here is that this creates a huge barrier for entry for any startups - not that there isn't already one.
Patents are just ways for large companies to choke off competitors by getting a state granted monopoly on an idea.
There are billions of dollars out there being wasted on patent litigation. That's money that could go into hiring more people and developing new products.
I'm against monopoly. Why isn't everybody else?
Maybe they'll go back to calling Windows Server - Windows NT. Microsoft got sued by Nortel (Northern Telecom) for using their trademarked "NT", which is why they changed the name.
I am sure Google is concerned about this development. There is nothing this gang will do that will be in Google's interest.
Question is: What can Google do?
The constitution is backed by military force. Quite like patents really.
A little under a decade ago (when our little-fish startup had been eaten by a middle-sized fish started-up-and-running but that hadn't yet been eaten by the giant conglomerate) Nortel sued our company on something I'd been co-architect on.
Though we'd done things differently (I ended up with seven patents for my inventions) I think the settlement still involved us paying them a few megabux to even out the patent licensing swap.
We all agreed that this proved Nortel was on the rocks. Switching from innovation to patent trolling, we figured, showed they were in deep trouble and trying to squeeze money out of every asset. As it turned out we were right.
Does anybody know if such cross-licensing agreements survive a bankruptcy and a patent portfolio sale? (I suspect not, since they're contracts with a bankrupt corp.)
Either way this should put the purchasers in a very good position to fend off attacks by telecoms and their equipment vendors against internet-based communication services. And if the agreements die with the previous owner it could let the buyers go on the offensive as well.
So I see this mainly as part of the generational struggle between the "Bell Head" telecoms and the "Packet Head" internet network companies, more than setting up a fight between Android and iPhone / Windows Phone / whatever.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Why not mention EMC and Ericsson in the summary, who are the only other two companies in the consortium? They're not small companies - they have market caps of $57bn and $47bn respectively. RIM are about a third to a quarter of the size at $15bn.
Bus error in your favour. Collect 200kB
Sony makes Android-based Xperia Smartphones. They would not attack Android, nor let the other members of the consortium doing it, it's against its interest.
I just want to express my opinion that patents should not be transferable. It is bad enough that corporations wield patents to hinder progress, maintain monopolies, and destroy smaller competitors. Patents are meant to protect the people who innovate. You should not be able to buy and sell this protection. If you didn't invent it, you shouldn't be able to enforce a patent on it even if you paid $4.5 billion for that "right." Also, If someone patents something, they have to do something with it themselves or they forfeit their patent. You can't just sit on an idea and wait for someone else to infringe on it so you can sue them. That's just wrong.
Off topic, but I just had to say it.
I declined share options and stock purchases and asked that if they were going to give me a bonus, that it be in cash even if it was only a fraction of the paper value. I thought through all the risks and decided that investing in what was already my sole source of income didn't make sense at any price.
"We can't beat them with quality product and service, so let's just buy the technology out from under them in a super-shady deal, and then sue/charge for the use of their own tech!"
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Like when Apple ripped off an wireless sync app made by a one guy.
Oh for crying out loud. Can we not rehash this. Syncing over wireless. Not a hard concept to come up with. They didn't rip the name off as it's the most obvious name for such an app. Neither did the rip off the logo as it's a combination of a 'sync' logo and a 'wifi' logo. It's not rocket science. Yes, they rejected his app (due to him accessing parts of the OS outside the SDK) but that doesn't mean that they just ripped it off. Everyone's been after wifi syncing since the very first iPhone and I find it ridiculous that people out there believe that apple couldn't implement it themselves and had to 'rip off' this guy.
Did you hear about Apple suing Amazon over the word "App"? Fuck Apple.
I8-D
Ask HTC, Velocity, General Dynamics and Onkyo about Microsoft.
They are paying royalties on Android to Microsoft to avoid being sued.
Apple is mainly suing Samsung for a blatant iPhone clone that would make a Chinese back alley knockoff maker blush.
You know this:
http://widgetlabs.info/uploadfiles/digestfolderinfo-1302100849/apple-sues-samsung-over-its-galaxy-phones-and-tablets_1.jpg
Android is open source, what you need a license for is the (non-open) Google app suite and they can easily replace those with their own.
As of right now, a lot of applications for Android devices are available only through Android Market, not through AppsLib, SlideME, Amazon Appstore, or direct APK download. One example of such an application is Chase Bank's quick deposit application. With so much demand for applications exclusive to Android Market, how could Sony get away with replacing Android Market with a different application?
If you're a fan of monopolism, fud, and business plans based on suing everyone else. Progress, this ain't.
Everyone who dares use the letter 'i'. Oops; someone's at the door, brb.
/faint scream, carrier lost
Apple copied LG Prada
That is one of the main reasons for 'consortiums' like this. Make it impossible to play ball with the big boys.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yes, it's obvious that two phones that came out within 6 months of each other. Do you seriously believe someone could take a phone from a photo, have it tooled, designed, mass produced, and released to the public in 6 months? LG and iPhone are similar, but nothing like the parent's link.
Seriously?
Considering the company's bidding strategy on the Nortel patents, one has to wonder whether Google was ever very serious about its bid. If so, hopefully it learned its lesson: next time, instead of Pi, go with Feigenbaum's constant ($4,669,201,609).