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Motorola's Most Important 18 Patents
quarterbuck writes "Bloomberg has a story on Google's acquisition of Motorola and quotes IP lawyers who claim that 18 patents dating to 1994 are probably what Google is after. These patents cover technology essential to the mobile-device industry, including location services, antenna designs, e-mail transmission, touchscreen motions, software-application management and third-generation wireless."
Which 18 patents are they? You'd think in a 23-paragraph article they would have found space to list them.
How the hell can a 1994 patent cover email transmission?
Palm trees and 8
If you only have a license for a patent you can't use it as leverage against trolls like Apple - by owning core patents they can fire back...
It is clear: Google wants to get into the hardware business.
Or the patent troll business..... ?
From what I've seen over the past few years, the two are synonymous. You can't be in the hardware business if you can't counter-sue.
Some of those patents are encumbered by FRAND : Fair, Reasonnable and Non Discrimatory.
Such patents are essentiel to a global normalisation in which participant have to disclose their related patents and licence them in a fair, reasonnable and non discriminatory way. You can use them to get royalties but you'll have a hard time using them to block someone.
Remember, in Nokia vs Apple, Apple settlement rather quickly. In Apple vs Motorola, the litigation is still pending. So it seems that Apple considers those patents are rather weak.
At last, remember, Google bought Motorola also because it threatened OTHER ANDROID licensees !!!
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
You might wanna pull your head out of your arse and look up the term yourself there matey.
Now, obvisouly, if you where so sure of yourself you wouldn't be hiding behind AC, but for others as confused as AC wiki, can as always send you in the proper direction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll
Now a patent troll is *often* someone without an actual product, but Apple is indeed a troll since they are using their patents to try to force other players out of the market *while ignoring* said players portfolio (and counter demands).
"those patents are considered essential patents and thus Motorola is forced to license them at reasonable terms"
What is this concept of essential patents? The information i can find only applies to those made available to standards bodies, not sure how deactivating the touch sensor when next to a person's ear or data compression or any of the others mentioned in the article apply.
Please can you provide more information.
"The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
"Apple also filed a civil suit in March accusing Motorola Mobility of 'a pattern of unfair, deceptive and anticompetitive conduct' ". Does anyone else see this as a hypocritical statement considering what Apple has been doing suing the pants off anyone who makes a smart phone or tablet?
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
I don't know where you heard that... All I've heard is 20 years or 17 years, which is what's pretty well summarized here:
Quick quote from it:
For applications filed before June 8, 1995, the term is 17 years from the issue date or 20 years from the earliest claimed domestic priority date, the longer term applying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_patent_law
From what I've seen over the past few years, [hardware and patent trolling] are synonymous.
I thought the accepted definition of "patent trolling" on Slashdot was the practice of a nonpracticing entity, or one that holds and enforces patents but doesn't produce its own implementation of the invention. This definition would disqualify hardware makers (e.g. Motorola) and blueprint makers (e.g. ARM and Fraunhofer) from "troll" classification.
Perhaps quasius was confusing maintenance fees, reissues, and a lot of other obscure aspects of U.S. patent law that aren't discussed very often even on Slashdot. A U.S. patent lasts 3.5 years after issue, with three renewals available at extra cost. The first two renewals are 4 years each, and the third is to 20 years after filing or 17 years after issue.
I'm actually on the board of a technical standards committee (The South African Bureau of Standards) that does all official standards for our country. FRAND (where I am anyway) *only* applies in cases of standardisation - where implementing a patent is the only way to meet a National Standard *and* the patent holder was part of the standardisation process.
Not sure where you get the idea that FRAND applies to anything that is widely used, or is a defacto/ad hoc standard. It applies only in a very narrow use-case.
I sincerely doubt that email is a National Standard.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
6 patents from Illinois 1 lawsuit:
5,311,516 Paging System Using Message Fragmentation to Redistribute Traffic
5,319,712 Method and Apparatus for Providing Cryptographic Protection of Data Stream in a Communication System
5,490,230 Digital Speech Coder Having Optimized Signal Energy Parameters
5,572,193 Method for Authentication and Protection of Subscribers in Telecommunications Systems
6,175,559 Method for Generating Preamble Sequences in a Code Division Multiple Access System
6,359,898 Method for Performing a Countdown Function During a Mobile-Originated Transfer for a Packet Radio System
6 patents from Illinois 2 lawsuit:
5,359,317 Method and apparatus for selectively storing a portion of a received message in a selective call receiver
5,636,223 Methods of adaptive channel access attempts
6,246,697 Method and system for generating a complex pseudonoise sequence for processing a code division multiple access signal
6,246,862 Sensor controlled user interface for portable communication device
6,272,333 Method and apparatus in a wireless communication system for controlling a delivery of data
7,751,826 System and method for E911 location privacy protection
6 patents from Florida:
5,710,987 Receiver having concealed external antenna
5,754,119 Multiple pager status synchronization system and method
5,958,006 Method and apparatus for communicating summarized data
6,008,737 Apparatus for controlling utilization of software added to a portable communication device
6,101,531 System for communicating user-selected criteria filter prepared at wireless client to communication server for filtering data transferred from host to said wireless client
6,377,161 Method and apparatus in a wireless messaging system for facilitating an exchange of address information