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Motorola To Collect Royalties For Android
tlhIngan writes "It looks like Motorola wants to join in on the Android patent licensing fun enjoyed by Microsoft and others. (Yes, the same Motorola that makes Android phones.) Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha has stated they plan to collect licensing royalties from other Android manufacturers. Given Motorola's involvement in the mobile industry, they certainly do have the portfolio to go with it. It's interesting times ahead for Android."
Motorola is one of the oldest (if not the oldest) player in the mobile market. Expect the other big players that dont already have cross-licensing deals with Motorola to be begging for such a deal.
.. at least in the phone space.
Android has a strong future, but its no longer "free beer!"
"His name was James Damore."
Android is based on Linux and other open-source software. Google also open-sourced most of their own contributions under an Apache license. I don't see that as evil. Now the patent trolls are going after them with overly broad patents (yet another indication of the broken patent system), primarily due to the success of Android. The patent infringement allegations have not been proven. Android is just simply better but the established players can't deal with that.
Google's biggest mistake was using the Java language. That has always been a legal time bomb, since it was never made an open standard.
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The early bird catches the worm. The worm that sleeps late lives to see another day.
I had the great misfortune of spending a large portion of my life living and doing business under a Communist dictatorship. There was a reason Communism failed; those of us subjected to it hated it! But after reading more and more about how "intellectual property" impacts American businesses, in many ways it makes the Communist system sound better. While we had a lot of bullshit bureaucracy to deal with, it was nevertheless much more efficient than this American nonsense.
When developing a product, we didn't have a larger proportion of the development cost going towards lawyers and IP legalities than we had going to the engineers and manufacturers who actually created the product!
We didn't have products forced out of the marketplace due to licensing problems, depriving consumers of devices that are otherwise safe, useful, and valuable.
We didn't have businesses whose sole purpose was to leech off of the hard work of others by requiring licensing of their "intellectual property". Even the committees and other bureaucratic bullshitters we had to deal with, which in many ways were leeches as well, provided some minimalistic amount of beneficial coordination and consensus-building.
It's no wonder so many Asian countries are wiping the floor with America these days, economically speaking. You Americans have built yourself a "free market" that's extremely stupidly regulated in all of the wrong ways, and extremely inefficient, as well!
All of what I think is based on huge amounts of speculation. But I don't yet see Motorola as an evil company.
The Motorola patents aren't likely to be software patents and I have to wonder if any of them will be. Motorola and mobile phones go way back after all. I think if Motorola strikes deals with other android mobile phone makers which is reasonable and affordable, then it's just fine. It could also prove to be highly defensive of the Android community once they strike deals early on with Android phone namers, they will naturally expand to other phone makers.
(This is where my speculations turn to hopes)
Once Motorola turn to other mobile phone makers, I hope the deals with makers such as Apple include deals which prohibit their actions against Android makers.
As others have pointed out, Apple does NOT want to mess with Motorola. Motorola has been patenting mobile technologies for a LOT longer than Apple has which gives Motorola the upper hand in these kinds of situations.
It starts with a few companies who "only" want to collect $5, or $10, or $35 per Android device. I suppose we can all nod our heads and agree that the mighty should be able to throw their weight around. It feels right. Who cares about the details - we're sure Linux must have stolen something. Otherwise how could it be so great? And so cheap?
But nothing stops the flow of new complaints. Do you know how many software patents there are? How many new applications per day? How many are obvious, trivial, or overly broad? Soon it will be a dozen companies collecting a Linux tax - forget merely on Android - and then it will be 30. A gold rush will ensue - get on the list of people who have to be paid off. Name your own price - the world's high tech giants will have to pay up! But, oh dear. iOS will suddenly have the exact same problem. Do you know how many patents they violate? So will Windows Phone. So will Blackberry. So will those little "learn to read" kiddie computers they sell in Toys R Us. So will everyone.
When it finally becomes more than just a few pariahs and evil actors in the tech industry who try to enforce their patents, it ends with every product having dozens and then hundreds of lawyers showing up to tax them. The only question is, how much economic damage will we do to ourselves before we finally take the obvious step and abolish software patents - which were never even allowed in the first place in Europe, India, and China. This economically pernicious barratry is so obviously stupid that it makes the US an object ridicule abroad.
The tacit policy of allowing software to be patentable reduces competition, stifles innovation, breaks healthy markets, and diverts money to billion-dollar portfolio buys instead of jobs. The only thing it reliably accomplishes is enriching lawyers - the least economically productive activity imaginable.
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By no definition of what constitutes a mobile phone, did Motorola invent the mobile phone as is claimed by the article. They haven't even provided much refinements of pre-existing technology. They introduced the mobile phone to the US market, that's pretty much it. Next somebody claims that Bill Gates invented computers or operating systems.
The early history of mobile phone technology is shrouded in clouds. The Swedish military had mobile/portable phones in the 1930's, but they were likely not alone.
The development and introduction of a mobile phones for non-military use was almost exclusively done by Scandinavian actors. Beginning with the Swedish phones for use in cars and (more important) the technology for city wide mobile phone networks in the late 1940's, and culminating in the NMT system in 1981, that unified the different Scandinavian national network technologies into one, most of it already old and proven technology (the most important inovation of the NMT system, was the idea to dial the phone number and then connect to the phone net, not connect to the phone net and then dial the phone number, as had been done since the first automatic phone systems (also Scandinavian inventions, by the way, the first phones was invented and made by Italians, not Graham Bell (he copied the mechanism of his phone from an article in a paper) or any other US-American, just to set things straight)).
All mobile phone technology that have been invented after that, is just small refinements.
Google's biggest mistake was using the Java language. That has always been a legal time bomb, since it was never made an open standard.
True, since Oracle is the only company targeting Google specifically
Now the patent trolls are going after them with overly broad patents (yet another indication of the broken patent system), primarily due to the success of Android.
I don't think they're targeting Android so much as other phone manufacturers. I think we'll see that most of Motorola's patents relate to phone hardware - they really haven't done much in the phone software space. They're talking about doing more of this to help make their phones stand out compared to other Android phones - either by driving up competitor's prices or forcing them to drop features. This is actually a fairly reasonable use of the patent system since Motorola actually makes phones using their patents - it isn't "trolling" as we usually discuss it here.
Motorola 'may' collect royalties on phones that violate their hardware patents including Android phones. Its not the same thing as collecting royalties for Android or any particular feature of the operating system itself. It still sucks in my opinion but lets get real here this is not about software patents which remain the bulk of the problem with companies like Microsoft, Eolas, Lodsys and Apple. Software is already protected by copyright it should not be stifled with patents. And people on here parroting the notion coined my Microsoft Public Relations such as "Developers should indemnify users" are pathetic trolls. When you claim that developers should 'indemnify' users you are claiming that in order to write software or be a developer you have to have billions of dollars and a massive legal department in order to write code and distribute it. That is a farce notion pioneered and spread throughout the press by Microsoft PR against open source after the SCO fiasco which they funded.
This one of several blogs I've seen make this claim the past two days, and I'm honestly still at a loss to explain their assumption. There is nothing in Jha's quote to indicate they are going after other Android makers. The blog linked from the summary says during its Q2 earnings conference call Motorola hinted that it is ready to join Android patent racket, and start demanding licensing fees for its IP from other Android manufacturers.
He based that claim on these comments:
With new entrants in the mobile space, resulting from the convergence of mobility, media, computing and the internet, our patent portfolio is increasingly important...Probably a little less well known is our strength in patent portfolio in non-essential patents, which are capabilities that are important to have in delivering competitive products in the marketplace...As we go forward, I think that the introduction of number of players with large revenues, which have come into the marketplace as a result of the convergence of the mobility, computing, internet and other segments, I think that that creates an opportunity for us to monetize and maximize the shareholder value in a number of different ways and we evaluate all of them all the time.
From that, the blogger now knows that Motorola plans to collect $60 per handset from HTC and Samsung. Or so he says. Now, he's made a new post, using a new quote from Jha to cement his position. He claims that this week Motorola’s CEO Sanjay Jha reiterated this message, and made it even more clear – they do indeed have plans to start collecting IP royalties from other Android makers. What did Jha say that so clearly showed Motorola's plans to sue their Android brethren?
I would bring up IP as a very important for differentiation (among Android vendors). We have a very large IP portfolio, and I think in the long term, as things settle down, you will see a meaningful difference in positions of many different Android players. Both, in terms of avoidance of royalties, as well as potentially being able to collect royalties. And that will make a big difference to people who have very strong IP positions.
That seems more likely (to me) to say that Motorola is not HTC and will not be paying Microsoft blackmail money. In fact, they may be able to extract their own pound of flesh from Microsoft and Apple. What in that passage gives any hint that Motorola will be pursuing other Android manufacturers? I'm at a loss.
Most of the value of a Google branded Android phone comes from it being connected to the Internet, just like any PC, only smaller. The actual phone part they don't even make (and it runs in a separate, isolated CPU). Most of what Android is is an application stack that is not very different from desktop applications. I really don't see how some old phone related patents can apply to that. Now the GSM, CDMA, 3G, 4G, etc. implementations do have patents associated with them, but those would rightly be paid by the phone manufacturers. These manufacturers get the application stack side for free to enhance the value of their phones. They also modify it as they see fit, generally making it worse. So Google would like the user experience to be better, so they impose certain restrictions regarding app store access if the OS is drastically modified. What is wrong with that?
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The early bird catches the worm. The worm that sleeps late lives to see another day.
There's a distinction between patents for hardware and methodology and patents for software. IMHO the software patents should all be invalidated and the tech sector would almost immediately improve. Much of software could still be protected under the copyright and trade secret systems, but this constant legal maneuvering between the major players and their attorneys would be ended. Think of the money saved from that alone.
If Motorola is targeting Android manufacturers that implies that it is something about Android that is infringing Motorola's patents. Since Android only consists of software, the patents it is infringing by definition must be software patents.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
Actually, mobile phone patents are one area where the patents indeed are very specific. Most of the oldest companies in the industry (Nokia especially) had to do significant amount of R&D to get the whole industry to where it's now. It's far from the likes of software patents - mobile phone patents are deserved and the companies that have them have spend billions to develop the technology. It's only fair that someone who wants to profit from that research pays some of the costs via patent licenses.
Patents for manufacturing processes are one thing (and I support them), patents for use of language (and ideas) are the tools of bandits. If Nokia wants to double dip and charge people who use their phone and charge people who don't use *their* phones or *their* components - then I'll call thuggery. But we're not talking about manufacturing processes with Nokia or Motorola - it's "idea" patents - which is banditry practised by big players over small players (bullying) - and ultimately bad for Business (shitting in the water supply). When Nokia's patents are for software that pays a royalty to the people and companies that wrote the code libraries, or compiler they where build with - and a royalty to every language they were based on - including the English language (why doesn't anyone think of Shakespeare's children?) then I 'll indulge you in your bullshit justifications. Until then I'll call them what they are - bullshit.
Your justifications smack of the sort of servile paganism that believes if they worship and pay tribute with words to the powers that be - then they too will share in those powers. It doesn't work with worshipping football teams or "stars" either. Of course you may hold large blocks of shares with one of those companies in which case you are protecting your interests and I unreservedly retract the accusation that you are no better than the cock-sucking thieving liars, thugs and bullies you defend.
P.S. Welcome to Slashdot. Today you're the new guy.
Although Apple has been known to buy things out, it's mainly small companies centering on very specific, underrated technology that they see as being able to leverage. Instead of whipping up their own copycat version and risk an established (even if very small) company suing and winning, they just buy them. Many technologies in Apple's hardware and software were purchased, to save on R&D as well as patent lawsuits.
It also gives them a head start on that idea - people watch Apple with a microscope, and when they start working on something, lots of trolls take notice a and start to look for ways to get their claws into a piece of it somehow, since Apple has a history of finding new markets. If they suddenly snatch up a little company that specializes in an unproven technology, the same thing happens, but Apple has a tremendous development head start, and has the necessary patents already in place.
Apple isn't big on buying larger companies. Too much dead weight to deal with. As you were saying, keep the patents and sell the rest. Why bother with the latter when you can buy a trim little company whose primary assets are the patents and the engineers that specialize in what you're interested in? So much easier that way to shed the remainder you don't need. Compare that with say, MS's recent purchase of Skype. They waited longer than they should have for sure, (microsoft's slow reaction time is a heavy burden on them in new arenas) but it's the same idea. But it still gives them a tremendous jumpstart both technologically and legally, without much drag.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
That you, Florian?
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
I believe that if someone spent money developing an idea, they should get to say what people do with it.
The patent system was not designed to stop people copying ideas, it was to stop people copying implementations of ideas.
In software, copyright law already provides that.
There are too many people in the world to give a monopoly to a single person on an idea. There is likely not a single idea you will ever have that someone, somewhere has not thought of before you.
Let's put it this way: if you were going to spend a few hundred million of your own dollars, wouldn't you want some protection against some yahoo coming along, copying your work, and selling it for less?
But there is no shortage of some protection. Trade secrets, first mover advantage, and government subsidies are very effective in rewarding people and companies that innovate. Subsidizing research out of taxes, in particular, should be several times more effective. In drug research, for example, we end up paying a patent "tax" which covers research and testing, but also marketing (which is often more expensive), and then some more to fill the upper management pockets. The alternative is to pay for the research directly, and then let generic drug manufacturers fight each other. Some patent defenders like pretending that there is no other way to reward inventors, but that's clearly bullshit. Most of them also believe that the patent regime improves the rate of innovation, but this assertion has been challenged many times by economists, and in fields like software is known to be flatly false; and the ethical problems which arise in fields like biology and medicine are daunting.
Let's put it this way: if you were going to spend a few hundred million of your own dollars, wouldn't you want some protection against some yahoo coming along, copying your work, and selling it for less?
If you're looking for protection, several other mechanisms exist. The purpose of patents is to expand public knowledge of inventions.
Since you haven't actually invented anything, it's easy for you to say that patents are crap...Mechanical patents can seem just as ridiculous as software patents, if you bother to read them. Does the patent regime make sense?
If, by ridiculous, you mean an unreadable and useless template for the public to recreate the invention (several software patents are deliberately vague), then it directly contradicts the purpose of a patent in the first place, and it only hurts the public to file one.