Apple Claims Samsung and Motorola Patent Monopoly

esocid writes with a bit in Daily Tech about the ongoing spat between Apple and the rest of the mobile world. From the article: "Apple lawyers are crying foul about Samsung, and ... Motorola's allegedly 'anticompetitive,' use of patents. ... Apparently Apple is irate about these companies' countersuits, which rely largely on patents covering wireless communications, many of which are governed by the 'fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory' (F/RAND) principle, as they were developed as part of industry standards. ... Apple takes issue with the fact that Motorola in its countersuit declines to differentiate the 7 F/RAND patents in its 18 patent collection. ... Regardless of what Florian Mueller says, it's hard to dispute that the 'rules' of F/RAND are largely community dictated and ambiguous."

Comments

How dare they sue us!

[Kenja]

We where just minding our own business, suing them, and then THEY SUED US for no reason!

World Class Hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

So when Apple sues its competitors with overly broad patents it's "protecting its innovations"

When the targets of Apple's anti-competitive lawsuits counter-sue Apple cries "anti-competitive" monopoly.

Apple gets more evil every day.

Re:World Class Hypocrisy

[phantomfive]

Apple (lawyers) are saying (lawyers don't actually get irate as long as they get paid and the court time lasts longer and longer) that the patents were part of a standard. That Motorola et al purposely made their patents part of a standard, and are now using them to extort concessions out of Apple. This is unfair, because there is no way to work around the patents: you can't use a GSM network without using Motorola patents. So when the standard was made, all players agreed to license their patents for a reasonable cost.

This is different than the Apple patents, which theoretically can be worked around. Apple doesn't even want to license them, they want to prevent competitors from using the stuff they invented. Other people should go invent their own stuff. And legally, patents give them that right. It's great, isn't it? (sarcasm) But not hypocritical, unless you have no understanding of the issue.

Re:World Class Hypocrisy

[E IS mC(Square)]

So wait - Motoroal who invented something which is integral part of a mobile phone should not ask for any return on that from Apple and Apple should use such core technology for free, but Apple can charge anybody for rectangles and others should bend over and pay them???

And also, Apple's lawyers do all this without Apple's wish?

*head explodes*

Re:World Class Hypocrisy

[Anonymous Coward]

Most F/RAND patent licenses include retaliation clauses. A patent retaliation clause allows a company who is being sued over patent infringement to revoke licenses to its IP. I don't know about you, but generally when I sign a piece of paper I look at it what it says and think before I act because it may cost me.

Not only that, Apple seems to think they own rectangular device with an LCD touchscreen. Most of these Apple patents shouldn't even be valid. They "Just want" their competitors not to make phones with touch screens or process phone numbers to link them directly to the call function, or use an "Object oriented messaging system". Take your pick, most of these patents are crap.

For Chrissakes

[MightyMartian]

Look, you pack of fucking navel-gazing fucktards. Put down the fucking guns, agree to pool your resources to buy sufficient hookers and Caribbean vacations for Congresscritters to have the existing patent system tossed out the door. We get it that you all sort of started out accruing vast numbers of patents, some good, some bad, some absolutely fucking moronic, in no small part to fend off attacks from each other and from evil little patent trolls, but look at how it's complicating your lives. You couldn't roll out a steaming turd without someone somewhere trying to claim you infringed on a patent they own.

Apple, you're now one of the biggest companies around. If anyone can afford the required number of prostitutes, golf club memberships, or whatever it is those corrupted evil bastards in Congress have an appetite for. Google, come on, you could help out here, same with Samsung. Then you can, you know, compete on the quality of your products, rather than trying to stuff newspaper down each others throats in what can only be described as the bonfire of the idiots.

Re:For Chrissakes

[erroneus]

Apple's "bigness" is pending their continued popularity. The moment they cease to be popular, they will implode. They are not diversified enough to sustain itself as the market changes. Given that they base themselves exclusively on the consumer market, there may never be such a thing as "critical mass" in any of Apple's market places.

Critical mass is crucial to successful staying power. As it is, nothing that Apple offers is "necessary" and the cost of moving away from Apple at any point in time is trivial. Let's make the argument that Apple's iDevice apps have created something that resembles critical mass which I am sure many people would try to argue. Let's look at the money that users actually put into the software. $2 here, $5 there... $25? Unheard of for the most part. The numerous apps attract consumers to buy the iDevices, but the sunk costs aren't quite high enough to keep people married to them.

Now if we were talking about serious enterprise investments, even those nickel-and-dime expenses could equal something big, but Apple doesn't market to the enterprise and I have yet to see an iPhone deployment in a business that resembles deployments like blackberry. The same goes for Apple computers. I recall one jerk who used Apple itself as an Apple enterprise deployment. Dear god... that simply does not qualify.

Apple, I believe, has strategically limited itself so that it does not fall under various antitrust and other law/rules so that it can continue its "style" of business/abuse.

Pot, meet Kettle

[Kagetsuki]

Remember that little kid that hit the other kids, but as soon as another kid hit back he'd start crying? Apple is now that kid.

Coincidense?

[Mensa Babe]

1. 1. Apple frivolously sue companies using Google's software using its bogus patents for rectangles.
2. 2. Google buys Motorola to use its patent portfolio defensively to protect themselves against such companies like Apple.
3. 3. Apple attacks Motorola who used to be so great in the past (Apple would never use the inferiour intel CPUs, right?) and now it is Motorola that is being a problem with their patents?! Make up your mind, Apple. Make up your mind.

hoist by their own petard

[YesIAmAScript]

Apple's unyielding patent attack has to come to trouble for them eventually. It's bad enough MS wants $15 from every Android phone, but Apple just plain is trying to bar companies from competing.

The industry will eventually respond with the only tool they have, more patent garbage.

Perhaps this is the start of that.

It's going to take a long time before Apple realizes they can't win this legal battle and they should have just kept competing in the marketplace instead. They're pretty good at that, I'm not sure why they want to try to turn the business into a web of red tape for everyone instead of just pushing forward.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander

[sandytaru]

Or the pot is calling the kettle black. Honestly, the only people all these lawsuits are really helping are the corporate lawyers. Why don't all the technology companies just agree to drop ALL the lawsuits and instead invest that money into R&D? We could have had the next iPad killer by now if they weren't wasting time and money on lawsuits!

Motorola and Samsung can never be sued?

[Anonymous Coward]

If Motorola and Samsung have their way, this basically gives them total immunity to any lawsuit in the mobile sector. All because they deceived the standards bodies to include their patented technology by claiming they would not use them in lawsuits. Now that everyone relies on these patents, because they were incorporated in to standards, Motorola and Samsung are waving these around to make everyone cower in fear? I seriously hope these FRAND patents are thrown out for the good of everyone.

Re:One point - FRAND was a promise to ALL

[gubers33]

Yes, but Motorola has no interest going after the little guy or any of the other companies that are minding their business. They are going after the guy who starting poking them with the stick. This isn't a lawsuit they placed out of no where. It is a counter-suit, meaning it is a reaction. Motorola has no interest in screwing over the phone interest. Apple essentially kicked a sleeping dog and has to pay the price.

Re:One point - FRAND was a promise to ALL

[AwaxSlashdot]

From TFA (the one from Florian, the patent expert, not DailyTech, the tech reporting site), Samsung itself complained about Ericsson and Rambus for the usage of FRAND or undisclosed-essential patents and they should be barred from enforcing them.

Apple didn't even want to prevent Samsung from enforcing them. It just wants to separate the cases between : "having to pay a licence for FRAND patents" and "being blocked from selling products because of non-FRAND patents".