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Via Files Suit Against Apple
crookedvulture writes "Add chipmaker Via to the list of companies filing legal suit against Apple. Via owns a number of fundamental technology patents inherited from Centaur, and it's already forced Intel to grant an ongoing x86 license. Via also has a vested interest; CEO Wenchi Chen is married to the head of HTC, which Apple sued for patent infringement last March."
Surely Apple did not think that they were the only ones in the market with a patent portfolio.
It seems during this economic downturn companies have started throwing caution to the wind in an attempt to ravenously feed on each others still warm carcasses. What you'll end up with is a period of heavily suppressed innovation and increasingly locked down and crippled devices, software and services no one will be willing to part with money for. It's all going to shit!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Seriously, I think we need a person full time just to make spreadsheets and graphs of who is suing whom at this point. Soon, it'll be easy. Just put: "*".
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Shouldn't they be suing ARM as Apple licensed it from them?
If I was a VIA Investor... I might be a little pissed. These lawsuits cost millions of dollars with no guarantee of victory and often times they can result in your patents being invalidated. CEOs should not make decisions based on their wife's occupation... mainly because it is going to be largely emotional...
or perhaps somebody at /. finds it more interesting than before...
Apple stirred a bee's nest. Now everyone's coming out of the woodwork to sting them. I'd like to imagine that these huge companies were enjoying a status quo, like an assured mutual destruction understanding. But Apple had to fucked things up.
It seems during this economic downturn companies have started throwing caution to the wind in an attempt to ravenously feed on each others still warm carcasses. What you'll end up with is a period of heavily suppressed innovation and increasingly locked down and crippled devices, software and services no one will be willing to part with money for. It's all going to shit!
Nah, just too many lawyers. Don't make it any more complicated than need be.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
There is a difference.
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
Exactly.
Apple uses mainboards that are nearly vanilla Intel spec... They just make them a bit smaller than other companies. Who is VIA after? Apple doesn't use hardware different from anybody else... And if VIA already has a license with Intel what is there sueing Intel's customer? Unless they're after nVidia?
They are suing Apple over things that are obviously in the ARM core they licensed.
Fandroids hate facts.
My connection's a little lossy today. I read that as "VIA...patents...Centaur!"
Fine with me. Any lawsuit against Apple is good news, IMO.
What started this mess is Apple and Microsoft wanting to destroy Android & Google.
Apple hates Android because its the biggest threat to their iOS success and especially to the iPad and wants to stop Android (and especially Samsung, one of the most successful Android vendors and the one that represents the biggest threat to Apple)
Microsoft hates Android & Google because Google is killing their online offerings (Hotmail vs GMail, Google vs Bing, Google Docs vs Office/Office online etc etc) and because Google (through Chrome OS and Android) is a threat to its traditional desktop OS business (and its attempt to push that desktop OS business into smaller form factor devices)
Android is also a huge threat to Microsoft's Windows Phone. Plus going after Android allows Microsoft to continue its fight against Linux and open source (since Android uses the Linux kernel)
Well ol Daryl Mcbide had a "vested interest" in SCO; oh yeah he was also the CEO. CEO's DO NOT NEED A WIFE to make decisions based on emotions or any flitting human trait, they can fuck up just fine on their own.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
In a galaxy far away, large corporate conglomerates wage battle to gain dominance in the vastness of space. The only hope of survival are a small, but pathetic force of Jedi nerds who resist the insidious marketing ploys and legal shenanigans of these dominating legal war mongrels. Will these Jedi nerds prevail? Stay tuned for continuing episodes of the Phone Wars.
Other quotes:
"These are not the phones you are looking for"
"Apple. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy"
It seems during this economic downturn companies have started throwing caution to the wind in an attempt to ravenously feed on each others still warm carcasses.
What warm carcasses? Companies have been reporting massive profits, Apple certainly not the least of them. Companies are sitting on gi-normous piles of cash. Unemployment is high but so are profits. There is a lot of uncertainty (economic, consumer demand, political, healthcare, etc) in the economy so companies are keeping their powder dry and waiting for things to settle down a bit.
All these lawsuits are because we are at a tipping point where PCs are becoming less important and mobile devices are rapidly becoming more important. We're simply seeing companies fighting to establish dominance in this new world. Despite the patent system being rather broken, companies pretty much are forced to use every weapon at their disposal. I don't see this changing anytime soon.
I need some toilet paper, what to do?- hey I know!! I have these worthless USA patents that no longer have any credibility, I'll just wipe my arse with those, they're of no other use.
I see this more of a case of people in glass houses throwing stones. Apple cannot be the bully and not expect to eventually have someone stand up to them. Patent trolls will be trolled themselves, it's just how it works out. However, the number of patent and copyright trolls is definitely increasing, with even semi-respectable companies joining the fray.
Great Intellect...
And by "this" I don't mean this specific instance, but the whole patent war they initiated to destroy Android. Why? Because they partnered with Microsoft in this endeavor. Whoever partners with Microsoft ends up sucking it, hard.
Already the bullshit lawsuit about rounded corners is starting to turn sour for Apple. Apple doesn't understand how vicious South Korean style of management can be - Samsung execs are not going to forget this easily. Oh no. Add Google acquiring the Motorola patent portfolio, HTC being pissed off and now a little salvo from VIA... yeah, Apple's going to suck it.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
You left out Oracle.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Yes, because they're a company out trying to make money by selling a product in a free market that you don't like. Not like Google or Microsoft, they're friends.
What is with the pathetic brand hatred amongst nerds on the internet.
Like the wheel-chair copy guy in FG !!
The patent business is completely mad. Eventually (not so far in the future methinks), the world will grind to a halt as everyone will be in court fighting patent cases rather than doing anything productive.
"You can lead a horse to water but a pencil must be lead!" - Stan Laurel
It was Apple's mouth writing checks their ass can't cash. Apple is real worried: Android is a real threat to them. Their iDevice market is where their big profits are, they don't have a "what's next" lined up right now and Android is encroaching in a big way. In particular, HTC and Samsung have been since they've smoothed out android's UI and made it even more user friendly (if bloated).
So Apple went all lawsuit happy. They want to suppress any competition. turns out, the competition isn't so happy about that and is hitting back. Hard. In the case of VIA part of it is the relation with HTC, the other part is I'm sure VIA has an interest in the tablet market. VIA has never done well at the high end and so has stopped trying, but they do low end pretty well. Maybe they want in to the tablet market.
When you start suing everyone, expect to see the same in return.
Yes, Apple was the first ever company to sue someone for infringing upon their patents...
Good thing that's a guy - the name almost demands an EEOC complaint all by itself.
#DeleteChrome
Isn't this part of Groklaw's new mandate now that SCO is gone?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
I am just thrilled that the world of commerce is about to whip the delusions of grandeur out from under Apple. They wanted controversy instead of co-operation because they have a sense of entitlement, and now they have it. They want foes instead of friends, and the universe has provided. I'm even more thrilled that all the Apple fan-boys are going to have to work overtime convincing themselves and their burned out temporal lobes that corporate worship isn't a sub-human enterprise.
CEO Wenchi Chen is married to the head of HTC
Holy fuck they must be rich.
Meh.
:)
Coke/Pepsi
Christianity/Islam
Xbox/Playstation
Star Wars/Star Trek
Twilight/Good books
Everyone will always find something retarded to go all tribal over. It keeps things interesting. I just wish I could see what stupid crap the great divide will be over 2,000 years from now
HTC is literally in bed with VIA
I don't know. I'll ask the pathetic losers on digg.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
Total FUD. Via runs passenger trains in Canada. Their chips are horrible AND expensive.
rewriting history since 2109
When times are tough you do everything you can to knock the other guy out of the game entirely because you can THEN fight over the still-warm carcass, e.g. the customer base.
Perhaps we should look at who bought the legislation that created this situation.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
When did Apple partner with Microsoft? What did I miss?
Here is the Web of Mobile Patent Lawsuits. How on earth is Microsoft and Apple partners?
What is with the pathetic brand hatred amongst nerds on the internet.
Give him a break; His dog got hit by a hipster texting on his iPhone 4, an iPad2 killed his brother just to watch him die, and an iPod Touch knocked-up his super-model Canadian girlfriend, and he's stuck with trying to avoid paying child support (in Canadian dollars! In this economy!!).
A few bad Apples can spoil the whole bunch for some people.
The Admin and the Engineer
It's not just you. The fundamental problem is that there is a conflict between global capitalism and the patent regime. The patent regime is hundreds of years old, and developed from the rule of Kings, who could use their power to bestow monopoly rights on their allies in certain areas of production. Think about that - the whole system was based around an exclusive right to manufacture within the boundaries and legal jurisdiction of a single nation. This kind of worked, because the existence of a single legal jurisdiction resolved any conflicts (for better or worse). But with the explosion of globalisation in the 1990s, the whole concept fell apart.
Why would a foreign court recognise your patent? Patent resolution is far too arbitrary. Why should Chinese companies, who only recently discovered capitalism, accept that they have to give a share of their profits to Western companies for patents that predate the concept of capitalism in their nation? Why would an American court side with a foreign company over an American company? Why would Korean courts side with a Western company against one of their own?
Global capitalism encourages rabid competition; the patent regime is the complete opposite, and is more akin to the communist states which granted production monopolies to favoured suppliers. Monopolies, in essence, are anti-capitalist, and in this globalised world, lacking a single governmental regime for patent jurisdiction and resolution, it is inevitable that there are going to be huge differences in the way that nations treat different companies and different patents. And these differences are going to become more visible and exposed as more and more companies file for increasing numbers of patents, and courts around the world are filled with the growing industry of global patent lawyering.
Had I known this 10 years ago when I started going to school to get my degree, I'd have gone into pre-law, and be able to retire in just a couple years after a successful career in software patent litigation...
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Instead of competing in a free market, Apple files frivolous IP lawsuit all the time.
Apple is scared to death of Android, and Apple is Tonya Harding tactics to compete.
And Apple has been pulling this sort of crap for decades.
That wasn't patent law. The GEM lawsuits were over copyright before it was established in court (in cases such as Lotus v. Borland) that user interface has a thin copyright. Much of it is a method of operation more than it is a pictorial or graphic work, apart from specific graphical elements such as the Aqua buttons. I guess the confusion between copyright and patent is one reason why Richard Stallman of Free Software Foundation rails against the term "intellectual property".
Oracle hates everyone, but is either leaving Microsoft alone for the same reason a barracuda won't eat a lawyer, or because they're waiting for the best time to stab them in the back.
Does Oracle wants Android to fall? I thought they only want to bite off some profit for themselves.
I am sick to death of the silly patent lawsuits.
After 1 year of filing the patent, yes I said filing, to enforce a patent you have to have a current product using the patent or it becomes void PERIOD.
Once said product is no longer available for purchase to the intended target audience then the patent is open game.
I feel the same way about Microsoft. Apple may be evil in many ways, but compared to Microsoft, they are a saint.
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
It's all going to shit!
And the cost of litigation is tabulated into the GDP. America is getting richer!
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Just enjoy it, since there's nothing else you can do. Sit back and enjoy the show. Grab some popcorn.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Companies are sitting on gi-normous piles of cash.
So we need to cut the taxes so that they will start hiring again! Really!!! Anything else will doom America!!!!!
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Whatever happens, lawyers will have the last laugh. Who is going to pay the legal expenses? Eventually, the legal fees are going to be passed to the product prices of Apple, Via and whoever fights these legal battles.
Maybe the solution to the economic crisis is a 95% tax on every single nickel every lawyer on the planet makes, with public executions if they so much as try to hide a peso.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
We'll hold court in Georgia.
+1 Insightful
Perhaps compared to 90s Microsoft. Microsoft today is incompetent and stagnating.
There are two kinds of people in this world -- people who are worth suing and people who aren't. I assume that most SlashDotters fall into the latter category and flame on about it out of jealousy. They should have faith, however, that someday they will hit it big and, YES, get the shit sued out of them. Then they will know that they have arrived . . . in court.
Uhh no. I'm all for the free market. The free market is about competition and Apple, with all their patent-trolling, is about as anti-competitive as they come.
In TFS?
The best way to deal with a schoolyard bully is to get everybody else together and beat the hell out of him. Just once, but it has to be a concerted effort.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
and you're gonna get burned!
Yay! You won a banana. Here you go.
Wtf, are you new..?
This is no different than any other time or place in history, it's just that the public is (somewhat) better at determining when they're being bs'd.
Or rather how much they're getting bs'd.
Android is not a threat to Oracle.
You people that suggest that Apple is "worried" about Android are delusional.
Apple has $76 Billion in cash.
Let me repeat that for you Android Fanboys.
$ 76 BILLION. More cash on hand than the US Government.
The main competition for Apple isn't HTC or Via or Samsung. It's Microsoft. But you don't see them suing microsoft over tablets or anything else for that matter.
They tried for years and finally agreed to disagree. A lot of lawyers got rich, and all our computer prices went up because of it.
Apple is suing all these people for the same reason that Microsoft sues people weaker than they are:
Because they believe in a scorched earth policy of doing business.
Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Apple . . . Litigation is just a tool, just like marketing and R&D.
You beat the other guys any way you can, you don't worry to much about how much of a threat they really pose, you nuke them as soon as you see them on the horizon because that's just how it's done.
As I sit here, typing this on my Fedora 15 laptop, I have a Mac mini playing some Law n Order type show off Hulu. I really WANT to like Apple, the company that made a Unix O/S that appeals to the masses. But sadly, I just can't.
With all the edicts about telling developers what they can and can't do on iPhones, (no flash) to only including ANCIENT copies of GNU utilities on MacOS, I smell loss of choice any time I give money to Apple. I was about to buy a Macbook Pro when Apple came out with their "no flash" edict... I bought a Dell Precision quad-core i7 that dual-boots Fedora/Windows instead.
So my phone is a Droid2, my laptop is a Dell running FC 15 instead of a MacBook.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Question: what is 10000 lawyers on the bottom of the sea?
Answer: a good start
Android is not a threat to Oracle.
That's never stopped those mothers from tightening the thumb screws and trying to expect blood from every stone.
Americans are born with a great arrogance. Take MS and how certain it was that when it was gracious enough to offer an OS for mobile devices, the phone companies would come knocking at its door... and they didn't... HTC got their big break as a chosen partner (meaning MS payed them a shit load of money) to make for instance the XDA and HTC used that money to become an android phone maker...
It seems MS at no point was capable of thinking that the entire world was NOT waiting at its feet to release its next bit of software. In fact it seems that MS just never understood, still doesn't, just how much bitter hatred it has generated in the world. Why do you think Nokia was opposed so long to use MS for all its phones? Why do you think the industry first embraced Symbian and now Android? Why do you think several phone makers are involved in Linux research? Because they prefer ANYTHING over dealing with MS exclusively.
Apple seems to have fallen in the same trap. They believe they own the rectangle (look at a tablet and see how fucking similar it is to ANY monitor screen out there) and can't believe that anybody else might disagree with them. Believing they can own the market and therefor tell the market what to do (don't make tablets in their most logical form) they started to sue... and now they find the entire industry against them. Or do you think MS is going to be happy to have no minimal design tablets for Windows 8 out there? If Samsung can't produce Android tablets, it can't produce Windows 8 tablets either.
And with so many enemies, one is sooner or later going to find something that sticks and Apple is going to be in deep shit. Because Apple doesn't have any safe cash cows generating money. Kill the iPhone and Apple is dead in the water. And with so many enemies, one of them will perfectly willing to finish it off.
Unless they got some fiendishly clever plan I really can see the people at Apple going "Oh shit, what the fuck did we get ourselves into". If they weren't arrogant Americans. But they are, so they probably think they are not just going to win but that god is on their side.
One of the problems Apple might have ignored is that asian companies are closely tied to their governments and each other. They cooperate a LOT more then in the west, even across borders.
Apple didn't just piss off Samsung, it pissed off Asia.
My bet is that within half a year, Apple will plead for mercy and offer a deal. Good chance it won't be taken.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There seems to be a lot of patent lawsuits lately. But how do the companies find out someone is infringing their patents? Do they have engineering teams to take apart their competitors' products, and try to match to their patent portfolio? Or do they just look at the product specs and figure that they have patented the only way something could be done, so the other guys must be infringing?
Yeah, I jumped the gun. I also mistake "spokesman" for "director".
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I love Apple Computer.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
If it was not for MBAs, there would be little need for corporate lawyers.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Georgia is almost as good at killing innocent people as Texas!!!
There's a difference between launching a nuclear bomb to end WW2 and launching one in the middle of the Cuban missile crisis.
Yeah, they're not as evil as they used to be. Turns out evil was the only thing they were really good at.
That is just oracle standard operating procedure.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Indeed. While some people are just dying to buy the next iPhone without even knowing what it'll be, there are still a lot of people who still ask "which is better." I've heard plenty of salespeople expounding the power of the Galaxy S2 vs iPhone 4. Face it, the 4 is older and significantly behind the S2 in terms of most hardware. There's also some neat phones like the evo3d etc (not available here).
Salespeople are going to gravitate towards pushing the highest-margin item that sells. By having the S2 banned, Apple has time to come up with a new phone that they can then sell as the newest and most expensive. It's no coincidence that the iPhone5 was being hyped up prior to *any* specs coming out, it's a way of trying to prevent people from buying "somebody else's phone" but instead waiting for apple. By killing off other choices using lawsuits - even for awhile - Apple can keep those other phone companies from taking away potential "next gen" iDevice sales...
I've heard of corporations being in bed together but this is ridiculous are they dynastic too?
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
Apple has been destroying the free market and it isn't because other companies aren't able to release competitive products due to litigation.
This is just too funny for words to adequately express. Cluestick to Apple: Live by the patent lawsuit, die by the patent lawsuit.
For everyone else, I'd rather see you compete by your innovation and pricing, rather than by your lawyers.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
It seems during this economic downturn companies have started throwing caution to the wind in an attempt to ravenously feed on each others still warm carcasses. What you'll end up with is a period of heavily suppressed innovation and increasingly locked down and crippled devices, software and services no one will be willing to part with money for. It's all going to shit!
Until a company actually sells something that is truly new and innovative... Then the ravens will be heard with echoing voices saying, "Hellloooooo? Helooooooooooo? Anybody want our awesome innovative products?? Guys? Helloooooooo? We innovated first! Dibs! Heloooooooowwww? ANYONE?"
/humor... or is it?
Must have enough of an interest for a lawsuit.
The free market is about competition and Apple, with all their patent-trolling, is about as anti-competitive as they come.
Fine, you have irrational iHate fever. Apple has proven to be the only competitor that can create new tech and markets. It has proven to be the only one the could last with, and now finally get the recognition, for aways outdoing the original copycats: Microsoft.
But seriously, patent trolling? Do you even know what that means you child?
A handful of Apple innovations in no particular order:
- iPad
- iWork for iPad
- iPhone (redefined what a phone is -- EVERYONE ELSE IS STILL TRYING TO RIP IT OFF; APPLE IS FIGHTING BACK AGAINST BLATANT SLAVISH COPYING AND TRADING ON ITS GOODWILL)
- Mac OS X (inc Cocoa, Dev Tools, Core Frameworks -- EVERY DESKTOP OS WISHES IT COULD BE OS X)
- The Macintosh
- The iMac
- iLife
- The iPod
- iTunes
- Mac Mini
- Newton
- Powerbook 100
- The Apple II
- Got rid of DRM on commercial music downloads
Apple creates the best software and delivers it on the best hardware within well thought out constraints. Grow up dipshit--you are clearly not a software guy.