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How Google Drove Samsung Away
itwbennett writes "The patent licensing agreement between Microsoft and Samsung this week set off a firestorm of childish tit-for-tat between Microsoft and Google. But more telling is what Samsung had to say about its relationship with Google: 'Samsung knows it can't rely on Google. We've decided to address Android IP issues on our own,' a Samsung official told The Korea Times. The only good news to come from all of this, says blogger Brian Proffitt, is that we may be headed for a courtroom showdown over just what patents Microsoft believes are in violation, which really is what should have happened to begin with."
Update: 09/30 20:05 GMT by S : As it turns out, the so-called "Samsung official" cited by The Korea Times turned out to be patent blogger Florian Mueller.
I'm surprised the shareholders of Google haven't done more to urge Google to spend their profits on supporting Samsung.
I'm prepared with popcorn.. I can't wait to see the whole patent system destroy itself. Then we can do IT.
I really liked when they used sci-fi as prior art. Patents are ridiculous. Small people in big corporations invent and they're doing it for fun. As long as I have food, water and scrap to build equipment I will invent.
'We've decided to address Android IP issues on our own,' a Samsung official told The Korea Times.
So is that a Board of Directors official, a management official or is it the official janitor? These details matter.
what's the point, microsoft was built on lies and deception, no wonder its a paranoid freak show, do one thing good damn it, do windows or do xbox, you can't win it all . and take it from me there are some problems in this world that throwing money at it won't fix. for example you can't buy creativity with money. and mr microsoft thats what you guys are lacking big time.
If microsoft says that every android device violates their patents then its nothing but just a Extortion racket they are building up by threatening other vendors. Im glad that a company like B & N has balls where as HTC and samsung c not. I'm never buying any windows product ever in my life again. lets start boycotting all MS products. OTOH why Department of Justice/antitrust regularities cannot look into deals like this?
From TFS:
The only good news to come from all of this, says blogger Brian Proffitt, is that we may be headed for a courtroom showdown over just what patents Microsoft believes are in violation, which really is what should have happened to begin with.
I completely disagree with the idea that the first thing you should do in a patent dispute is to take someone to court. Look at the difference between Apple and Microsoft as far as Samsung is concerned. In the case of Apple, Samsung has been taken to court in various districts around the world and has been prevented from selling some of their products at all in certain countries. Suit has met with counter-suit, and lots of lawyers have got just a bit fatter. This will either end with Samsung having to scrap their product line, or settle this all out of court with some deal. Either way it will cost them a bundle.
On the other hand, Microsoft negotiated a deal, during which time Samsung was not prevented from selling their products anywhere. The end result is still a deal with another company, but without the cost and PR problems that lawsuits generate.
Why should the former be the preferred option? Yes, more details on the patents would be appreciated but the companies involved with these deals must be given more information, otherwise they would not make the deals. I imagine a lot of the patents would be the absurd type, just like Apple's patents in the Dutch case. But I am sure that some of their patents (VFAT, ActiveSync) would stand up in court though.
Why not identify the patents Microsoft claims are being infringed upon, so that Android can remove alleged infringements
Why is Microsoft allowed to extort money but not identify how their bullshit IP claims can be avoided?
Why should Microsoft receive a bullshit tax on all Android sales when really they are full of shit and have proven time and time again, they will do whatever they believe they can get away with to fuck the world for their own personal profit!
Can't we just get rid of patents now? I mean, it's more and more clear that this just won't work. Never mind that it was not what 'copyright' was invented for.
The major manufacturers would have only come to terms with Microsoft if they came to the conclusion that in a drawn out court battle, Microsoft would win. Small parties have won against Microsoft in the past - we saw it with an XML decision recently - all of these firms that have signed up haven't done this because they are cowed by Microsoft's awesome juggernaughty power - they've done it because their lawyers have looked at what's on the table and said "best we go with that". You go to the barricades when you think you can win. You settle when you know you're going to lose.
Where Google hung their partners out to dry was in asserting the fiction that patents don't matter and that under the current system you could get something (an advanced phone operating system) for nothing (no patent licensing fees). Google is full of smart people. They knew these issues were around Android. They could have sorted them out a long time ago if they had so chosen. But Google didn't go and fight that fight - if they had wanted to, they could have indemnified their partners and gone directly into battle with Microsoft on this issue. Instead the company chose not to.
They've always had the war chest and could have tied Microsoft up in court for an eternity if they knew they were in the right. Instead they've let a situation develop where they are giving away an operating system for free that has their partners putting dollars into the pocket of a competitor.
Talk about stifling innovation is cheap - if Google were serious about all of this they would have gone to the barricades on it. If they really believed in the rhetoric, they would have either gone down swinging or taken down the "patent trolls".
Anyone knows what the heck those patents are ?
Heard a lot of buzz but nothing about what android is supposed to be violating ?
It would be interresting to know.
http://www.break.com/index/koreas-got-talent-2068576
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPqr1nw1imw
Yes, very off topic... Boing Boom!
But, so watchable!!!
The past few days, I've been thinking that this is all part of a Microsoft strategy. I think Microsoft is giving these companies a line that goes something like this -- "We're planning to take Linux to court for patent violations. If you sign this agreement, to give us a piece of the pie every time you use Android in your product, we'll put your company down as a partner and not a patent violator." ...what company wouldn't sign THAT? Sure it's a racket, but if you're Samsung (or any other who's signed), you've got to be thinking that if it turns out in Microsoft's favor, then your company is in the right basket. If Microsoft gets found to be in the wrong, then you'll probably get your money back later when the court forces Redmond to pay back all the "protection scheme money". Either way, your company has a good shot at coming out fine by hedging. That's what I think's going on. In the meantime, Google sees this coming, and started building up a portfolio of patents as fast as they can.
will they have to repay all the extortion money they conned out of HTC/LG/World + dog? With interest? That would be the final drop of varnish on Ballmers coffin - the nails all went in when he fumbled the Motorla deal and let Google snap it up.
Android is yet another me-too iOS clone. Yet another F/OSS project taking yet another successful proprietary design and creating a crappy clone of it. Whats that linux thing?
Why should a court case be inevitable now? Microsoft will NEVER detail what patents that they believe Linux infringes on. Folks have been begging them to do so for years so that if Linux infringed on any Microsoft patents that code could be reworked. Microsoft would have little ammunition for its shakedowns if they actually put their cards on the table.
Microsoft offers variable discounts instead of a fixed price to large OEMs like Samsung that buy a lot of Microsoft products. If Samsung don't play ball they could lose a lot of those discounts and their products with Microsoft software on them are suddenly a lot less competitive or have a lot less profit margin than other OEMs.
See ASUS and the eeePC turnaround for a blatant example. The Asustek CEO gave a presentation at a trade show about how wonderful the new release was, had lunch with people from Microsoft, then issued a PUBLIC APOLOGY that afternoon that the eeePC didn't have MS Windows XP on it and cancelled the product he'd launched in the morning. Microsoft was a pitbull that had his balls by the teeth so he just had to do whatever it took (no matter how personally humiliating - total loss of face is a pretty massive deal at an Asian trade show) to get them to let go or he'd most likely lose a big advantage in the Microsoft OEM space which is a massive piece of ASUS's market.
So Samsung, ASUS etc are screwed while B&N, Google etc do not have a special OEM discount deal so have nothing to lose.
Ok, this is a kinda of a rant, so just go elewhere if you're not in the mood...
I see things with a certain different angle, because I'm far away and still, as a user, I have some biased opinions on things like consumer rights (for instance).
For starters, patent or otherwise, innovation really shouldn't be stopped by any legal device. If it works that way, not only the legal system is not working but also there will be really bad consequences for society as a whole (i.e. not just the country such devices are in use).
Then there is the issue of corporations having to litigate. Of course, a nanny state is something to be abhorred, but conversely having everyone resort to guns for self-defense creates a "frontier" climate, where the life of people (or corporations in the present case) is decided on a whim.
Alas, as Eistein once put, we'll need a different level of thinking from the one that led us into this situation. Whereas patents were once devised to protect the little inventor, we must recognize they're not working as intended. Instead they're helping exactly the same villains they were created to fight; they are providing powerful people the means to usurp buy out the rights of the less powerful. Also, patents were created to facilitate the spreading of ideas, not to constrain them.
*sigh* I really cannot present a complete, viable alternative on my own; also, despite all warnings from people more knowledgeable than I myself, the current system proceeds at an unabated pace in the same direction... I guess some really must learn only thru "experience".
Samsung just add the exact per device m$ extortion fee to all the Wp7 handsets they make. Users either avoid them, and most likely buy Android whilst helping Wp7 die, or cough up anyway and Samsung is even on the "deal".
Don't think for a second that the business of government doesn't benefit from their overly complex, highly ambiguous, and exploitable system of law. The more it costs to run the system, the more cash passing through the hands of those who control it. The bigger the cash flow, the better positioned they are to exploit that cash flow for personal gain.
Did I just imply that the entire underlying reason we are subject to the most complex, most expensive legal system in the entire world is simply to increase the net worth of the business of government? You're damn right I did.
Have any of the infringed patents been made public? I can't find any mention of which patents Microsoft is licensing.
What Android IP issues?
"Samsung Electronics understands that Android system has patent problems that should be settled with licensing."
Except there isn't: patent infringement can only be proven by going to court. Samsung hasn't done that. All Samsung understands is that they're paying for a license to Microsoft because they've been led to understand there is a patent problem.
What MS patents are Android devices infringing that iPhones aren't? That Blackberries aren't? Or that Samsung WP7 devices aren't?
Please, someone working with Samsung, HTC or any of those companies, please send the documents to wikileaks. Let them to rip off the sensitive data of who leaked it to cover your asses and blow up the whole fucking shit back to Microsoft face.
Do the right thing and show the world what kind asshole and abusive corporation the Microsoft is for whole world.
Do the right thing.....
At somepoint, someone need to stand up and stop the stupid chair game so everyone could actually sit down and start helping whole world without one corporation ruling what and when can be invented and brought to public.
none of what you imply is an option, nor has it happened. your 100% microsoft friendly post full of lies is disgusting.
Apple has more or less lost the injunction in europe, microsoft has ensured they will cost samsung extra money. For what? This isn't going to last for microsoft or samsung.
neither of those are viable business options.
There is no patent from microsoft that would stand up in court - they know this, and that is why they spread this fud.
Nice to sneak in the swpat link, troll.
Describing Android as a F/OSS project is a bit of a stretch. It's a proprietary system that Google bought, half-heartedly opened, and then mostly closed again. One proprietary software company creating a crappy clone of another proprietary software company's product. Not exactly uncommon...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
What I've always wondered, is whether is any of these patent agreements with Microsoft include a payback, if it turns out they DON'T own certain patents that they are claiming to have been violated..... or a percentage of that percentage or something.... That's the only way I'd sign something like that. It's now probably going to court, and if Microsoft loses, they should have to pay back the companies they blackmailed into paying them! /okmaybenot
Peace over Anger Honor over Hate Strength over Fear
Stupid samsung. It's up to the telcos to address the IP!
I would support 5 times the TAX M$ is asking samsung to pay in my next Samsung Phone (Nexus Prime) just to see M$ go away with this bullshit!!!
I'm surprised the shareholders of Google haven't done more to urge Google to spend their profits on supporting Samsung.
Samsung is a global industrial cartel with $172 billion in revenues in 2009.
Samsung can fight its own battles.
... and lose. I bet this deal came about quicker because Apple is destroying Samsung in courts around the world. Samsung claiming that Google should be taking care of all this is like claiming that Linus should be fighting for your right to mod an XBox to run the Linux kernel on it... Yeah, Google makes a tablet version, but they didn't go out of their way to force anyone to break a patent, or use someone else's design.
As of yet, Google has not been found in violation of any patents and they don't sell it commercially, it's free. Samsung, on the other hand, makes money for free off Android. So yeah, they have to defend it.
The moment Google has to make licensing deals on patents, Android will cease to be free... and by that, I don't mean to companies, but to small developers just wanting to use it on homebrew devices. It'll become the Unix of the mobile OS world. Open source, but huge license fees to use so as to pay for the lawyers to protect it.
I8-D
People are always talking about software as though it's intangible and metaphysical. This is because most people don't understand what's going on; they can't see gears and levers and wheels that can be turned by hand, so they assume that some kind of magic is at work.
There is no fundamental difference between the Newcomen steam engine and Linux's latest execution scheduler.
Compensation for the task of finding an original solution is what is at issue. However, should the inventor of rounded GUI elements be compensated in the same ways as the inventor of the LCD screen? The contemporary patent problem has to do with preposterously disproportionate entitlement.
Hmm, you've seem to have forgotten how reliant Samsung are on a certain OS for their computer division. And in the event that you try to bring up the component agreement Samsung had with Apple, well, apparently the razor thin margins weren't enough incentive to back down from Apple's threats.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The article seems to claim that Google drove Samsung away. But is that really accurate? All Google did was create an OS for Samsung to use. Certainly Samsung must know that Microsoft is a scummy patent troll.
Koreans with a persecution complex!? Oh how... generally Korean of them.
There is no fundamental difference between the Newcomen steam engine and Linux's latest execution scheduler.
There is no fundamental difference between Linux's latest execution scheduler and a chapter in The Art of C Programming.
The problem with software patents is that they are an attempt to patent ideas and mathematics rather than inventions. There are no physical constraints in software. The only constraints are mathematical. In consequence, there have only been two types of pure software patents: 1) Those so abstract and unconstrained by anything that they amount to an idea and not an invention (e.g. multi-touch gestures, one-click shopping), and 2) Those constrained by mathematics that are little more than naked attempts to patent the underlying mathematics (e.g. codec or encryption patents). Neither is supposed to be patentable.
So you use the example of the Linux execution scheduler. That is a piece of software. You would have to pick some aspect of it to patent. If there is some aspect which makes it particularly good at its function (perhaps it is O(1) and uses memory efficiently), you could try to patent what allows it to be efficient, but you would really be patenting the math behind it. You did not invent the math, you only discovered it. So let's get away from the mathematical constraints; but there are no other constraints in software, so you are merely left with an abstraction -- the idea of an execution scheduler. Something so broad that no one should hold a patent on it because the patent would cover any possible execution scheduler, regardless of how tenuous the relationship is to what was allegedly invented.
Patents restrict the usage of ideas. Copyrights restrict the transmission of ideas.
The only question is: What ideas deserve to have their usage restricted? It all comes down to entitlement, and that is really what we need to measure.
There are no physical constraints in software.
Everything is information. Everything is Mathematics.
I'll say it again:
People are always talking about software as though it's intangible and metaphysical. This is because most people don't understand what's going on; they can't see gears and levers and wheels that can be turned by hand, so they assume that some kind of magic is at work.
There is no fundamental difference between the Newcomen steam engine and Linux's latest execution scheduler.
anyone catch the possible release date of the iPhone 5 being oct 4? anyone know if this is a confirmed?
Google is also in the process of buying Motorola. But hey, there's no possible way that Google owning one of their competitors could possibly concern them, is there? Surely, they wouldn't pull some sort of Microsoft Plays for Shit/Zune move. No chance whatsoever that google will give motoroogle exclusive access to early version of Android 4. Google didn't say that compatability was a club they use to beat manufacturers into submission.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Patents restrict the usage of ideas. Copyrights restrict the transmission of ideas.
Neither of those is right. Patents restrict the usage of inventions. Copyrights restrict the usage of expressions. "Abstract ideas" are the first thing on the Supreme Court's list of the three things you can't patent: Abstract ideas, laws of nature and natural phenomena. (Maths come in under #2.)
Everything is information. Everything is Mathematics.
Nonsense. Mathematics can be used to describe anything, but the thing isn't the math. A jet engine is described by F=ma. A piece of software that calculates the force exerted by a jet engine is F=ma.
Android hardware vendors seem to think Google has magically changed the licensing on linux, and that they can safely ignore source requests.
http://forums.logitech.com/t5/Revue/Need-source-code-for-Revue/m-p/685370#M9988
And so far, they are getting away with it. Google apparently can say "fuck you" to the entire open source community, and nobody will do anything about it. I guess Steve Jobs really was ahead of his time!
From the too-good-to-be-true department, Brian Proffitt has updated his blog post with a correction. Turns out that the quote that The Korea Times attributed to a Samsung official actually came from Florian Mueller. http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/208357/how-google-drove-samsung-away
The only question is: What ideas deserve to have their usage restricted? It all comes down to entitlement, and that is really what we need to measure.
I meant to address this before I clicked submit above, so I'll just have to make another post.
The trouble with software patents is that if you actually answer your question for software, you come up with something that looks a whole lot like copyright. What you want to do is prevent someone from just wholesale copying a competitor instantly without doing any of the work, but do so in a way that doesn't allow the mechanism to produce monopolies and oligopolies that can exclude a later entrant from the market who does do the work. In other words, independent invention should be a defense -- as it is for copyright but not for patent.
Moreover, the normal problem for the patent system which requires independent invention not to be a defense is highly attenuated in the case of software: You don't want someone who sees the invention to make insignificant changes and then claim they invented independently without doing any work. But copyright for software prevents verbatim copying, which requires independent implementation.
That evens things out between the first mover and the competitors, because the most time-consuming part of software development both for the first mover and for competitors is the implementation -- working out all the bugs and security vulnerabilities. And since that takes time for competitors to do, the first mover can use copyright to achieve a significant first-to-market advantage. In addition, since it requires the competitor to incur the same expenses, the competitor can't use a development cost advantage to undercut the first mover -- who by the time the competitor comes to market has recovered most of its development costs and can then reduce its own prices in response to the competition while still achieving a positive ROI. Which means that there is no case for software patents other than to thwart follow on innovation by entrenching the market position of incumbents.
The quotation 'Samsung knows it can't rely on Google. We've decided to address Android IP issues on our own,' is erroneously attributed to Samsung by Korea Times, but was actually a quote from blogger Florian Mueller. You can visit DaringFireball for the details, but the false attribution seems to be as a result of a translation error.
DaringFireball
Blame that Andy Rubin hypocrite. Biggest shithead I've seen at Google with the possible exception of Vic Gundotra.
If you care about your freedom stay away from Android.
So google is driving samsung away by what, not suing them? (because, you know, apple buys parts from samsung, but is suing them also).
Be seeing you...
The trouble with software patents is that if you actually answer your question for software, you come up with something that looks a whole lot like copyright. What you want to do is prevent someone from just wholesale copying a competitor instantly without doing any of the work, but do so in a way that doesn't allow the mechanism to produce monopolies and oligopolies that can exclude a later entrant from the market who does do the work.
You are confused.
Copyrights: Copying, say, the source code or the binary 10101001 of software is a transmission of an idea.
Patents: Running that code is a usage of the very idea[s] that the code describes.
These are 2 different scenarios, each of which has its own kind of restriction.
However, there is a blurring between the notions of copyright and patent as I have presented them, but that's only because the differentiation of them is too subtle for most people, especially politicians, who are mainly trained in obfuscation; for instance, if I recall correctly, it is a violation of copyright to reuse wholesale another author's novel's plot even when those ideas are transmitted much differently. In my opinion, then, the plot of a novel really falls under patents rather than copyrights.
But you know what? It doesn't matter:
What [our society needs is a way to] prevent someone from just wholesale copying a competitor instantly without doing any of the work, but do so in a way that doesn't allow the mechanism to produce monopolies and oligopolies that can exclude a later entrant from the market who does do the work.
I think "who does do the work" is the tricky part, and the ones who we'll always win that judgment are the ones with guns and money.
At least this time it will be Microsoft fighting for Microsoft's point of view, and not having a sock puppet like SCO/McBride doing their dirty work for them.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
However, there is a blurring between the notions of copyright and patent as I have presented them, but that's only because the differentiation of them is too subtle for most people, especially politicians, who are mainly trained in obfuscation; for instance, if I recall correctly, it is a violation of copyright to reuse wholesale another author's novel's plot even when those ideas are transmitted much differently. In my opinion, then, the plot of a novel really falls under patents rather than copyrights.
So what you're saying is that you want to redefine what patent and copyright mean so that they mean something other than what everybody knows them to be under the existing law, and by redefining what a patent is so that it is something more akin to the right to make derivative works under copyright you can then say that software ought to be patentable. Don't be ridiculous. It remains the case that software should not be patentable if the patent system is to continue to work anything resembling the way it has in the past.
I think "who does do the work" is the tricky part, and the ones who we'll always win that judgment are the ones with guns and money.
Your statement is generic and irrelevant. Yes, people with money can use it to bully the little guy. How does that make it good policy to give the people with money thousands of software patents that they can use as additional ammunition in that fight?
This story doesn't need a correction, it needs a retraction. The only item of significance was the misattributed quote.
it was the Chief External Fud Officer, Florian what's-his-face.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Everything is information. Everything is Mathematics.
Okay, prove it. Give me a mathematical model that can accurately model the lightswitch in my wall. Down to the time of failure. Not the MTBF, the time of this switch's failure.
If you could give me a model that accurately predicted the failure of this switch, use that model to actually turn the light in my room on and off.
Without a CPU or programmable logic implementing the model and controlling some sort of transponder.
To some mathematicians, mathematics is everything. Some wannabee mathematicians invert the relationship and claim everything is mathematics. I see two errors of logic in that.
If you want to patent the math, patent the source code, and accept the limits on what that will buy you.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Is HTC standing up to some sort of attack by Apple?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
We can see what Apple is attacking Samsung with. There are no NDAs preventing anyone from even seeing those trash design patents unless they sign. Completely different ballgame.
And, if the design patents turn out to be hard enough to fight, I don't expect Samsung to hold ground there, either.
We are spectators to a poker game, trying to guess what the players are holding. You base your guess on the bets being placed, and I'll place mine by what's in the discard pile. And by how much money I see going under the table from Microsoft to the dealer.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Apple and Microsoft present completely different cases. See comments by others, above, as to why.
And the patents that are supposedly infringed by Android are vaporpatents. How can you indemnify against vaporpatents?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
The source code must be disclosed and claimed in the patent, and it must be the basis for the claim and the limit of the claim. And the claims must be limited by the language, compiler, libraries, runtime, etc., of the implementations they have running and reasonably bug-free.
That should be a lot easier to figure out than what we have: copyright is correct for software and patent is not.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
There may be reasons for asking for NDAs to discuss public things in the context of a suit, but this is clearly extortion, like the schoolyard bully threatening to punch you if you don't promise not to breath a word about it anywhere but in the principal's office.
In some decades this sort of gaming the system has been "normal". In some decades, it has been called what it is and disallowed. It has never been ethical.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
What kind of argument is that?
People do it all the time.
There have been times and places where it would have been perfectly accurate to say, "People lynch colored people for being colored all the time."
(Well, being colored and being the competition in some affair of money or the heart, usually.)
Still want to defend the legality of the immoral based on mode of behavior?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
And if you're going to post such drivel, do us a favor and don't hide behind the AC.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Design patents are some sort of "right thing"? Give me a break.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Treating your customers right is in your best interests.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
That design patents have become law and can be abused the way Apple is abusing them does not put Apple in the right.
Theoretically, the design patents can be challenged. There isn't much case law on it yet, however. It would be nice if Samsung could demonstrate the stupidity of the design patent law with this case, but I don't know how or where the next step of repealing the design patent law in the EU could get started.
Seriously screwed up when art becomes patentable.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
If Google is a thief, what, pray tell, is Microsoft?
Google has been a bit tricky, and it might have been nice had they been willing to put all of Android under GPL or similar copyleft, but from what I've read, they are complying with the letter of the law on the GPLed portions and how they are linked to code licensed incompatibly.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
What about HTC? They're playing ball and the only Microsoft products they seem to buy are Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile 6.5.... not exactly cash cows compared to Android. Why wouldn't they just ditch their Microsoft offerings and take them to court if the patents are flimsy?
You've read the reasons already, more than once, in reply to your posts above. Why keep up the fud game?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
There are rules of procedure to protect litigants from having incidental but potentially damaging information made public during litigation. Kind of like dragging in the question of whether the CEO is guilty of spouse abuse. The lawyers can argue about whether the question is even relevant, but in the meanwhile the news companies are making hay. So the courts allow a certain amount of keeping secrets.
Over the past thirty years, those rules have progressively become more abused until we have this kind of stuff. Microsoft could get sanctioned for it if the right lawyer took it to the right judge, but then there would be people like Florian Mueller (who used to be a good guy) claiming that there must be something with the merit of the claims if side-issues are being brought up. Besides, big companies probably prefer to keep things as they are, with the secrecy and all.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Should be the title of this article.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Samsung and HTC stand a high chance of having to pay a lot of court costs to defend themselves, whether or not Microsoft loses.
If they win, and if they can show Microsoft to have been disingenuous in bringing the suit, they may be able to partially recoup those costs -- years down the road.
Most likely, as others have noted, Microsoft is offering them various incentives and inducements to do something that Microsoft can represent as a win. This is obvious to anyone even half thinking about it, which is why I'm going to question whether you might not be somewhat disingenuous in your misreading.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
So what you're saying is that you want to redefine what patent and copyright mean so that they mean something other than what everybody knows them to be under the existing law...
No.
For the 3rd time, I'm illustrating that there are 2 issues at play (transmission and usage), and that the legal definitions of copyright and patent are inspired by those 2 issues, respectively.
Furthermore, I am saying that due to human error and lobbying, the legal definitions of patent and especially copyright have been smudged. However, that is simply an aside; it does not in any way detract from the point that there is no inherent reason why software (and mathematics, etc.) shouldn't be patentable.
The reason that mathematics is not patentable is simply because too many of the ideas that are construed as being "mathematics" do not warrant the usage entitlement that patents grant. You are basically making that claim about software: No software warrants the usage entitlement that patents grant. I don't think that is true for patents and even mathematics, and I think that one (see below) of the solutions to the patenting debacle is coming up with an objective measurement for entitlement; hence, my initial question: "should the inventor of rounded GUI elements be compensated in the same ways as the inventor of the LCD screen? The contemporary patent problem has to do with preposterously disproportionate entitlement."
by redefining what a patent is so that it is something more akin to the right to make derivative works under copyright you can then say that software ought to be patentable.
By not defining patents this way, you get one of the major problems with today's patent system: Patents written with laughably general language; patent holders need such laughable generality because there is currently no concept of a derivative work in patent law.
For the 3rd time, I'm illustrating that there are 2 issues at play (transmission and usage), and that the legal definitions of copyright and patent are inspired by those 2 issues, respectively.
And what I am saying is that your categories are wrong. Copyright is not about transmission -- you can't copyright the names in a telephone directory regardless of who transmits them, and in some cases you can infringe a copyright without any transmission or distribution. Copyright is about creative expression.
Likewise, patent is not really about usage -- if you invent the first ever vacuum tube and patent it, you can stop anyone who makes vacuum tubes, regardless of what they use them for. They could be making them to use in industrial art and it wouldn't save them. By contrast, if you invent a new use for vacuum tubes that already exist, like a tube radio, you can't then patent "vacuum tubes for use in a tube radio" where they are indistinguishable from the vacuum tubes that existed in the prior art. Neither can you use the patent to stop someone who buys your tube radio from using it to produce industrial art. Utility is a prerequisite for a patent, but it isn't the fundamental purpose of a patent. Patents are about inventions.
That is why this is wrong:
The reason that mathematics is not patentable is simply because too many of the ideas that are construed as being "mathematics" do not warrant the usage entitlement that patents grant.
The reason that mathematics is not patentable is because you didn't invent it. It exists inherently in everything. If you allow Newton to patent calculus, in theory he should be able to sue a physics professor who measures the time it takes for a mass to fall a meter under Earth's gravity. And if you don't allow him to sue for that then there is no use in issuing the patent, because anyone can construct a machine which operates under the laws of physics and allows the user to determine the answer to calculus problems using a combination of physical measurements and basic arithmetic without paying Newton.
You also allow people to take out rent-seeking patents like working out the equation that measures the maximum theoretical efficiency of a recently-published invention created by someone else and then patenting the math, thereby covering any highly efficient implementation without actually doing the work to implement the high-efficiency solution.
These are only a small fraction of the problems that arise if you allow maths or abstract ideas to be patented. You're saying that we need an objective measure for entitlement, but I don't recall that you have proposed one at all, much less one that would address all these issues. The courts haven't really either. But there's too much hand waving going on in both cases. By contrast, "no software patents" is very objective -- you just use something akin to the old printed matter rule. If a publisher would be liable to the patentee or not depending entirely on what words (or code) it publishes, the patent should not be issued. So let's hear your alternative objective measure for patentability that allows some maths to be patented without causing all this mess.
You obviously don't understand what I'm saying, and perhaps I don't understand what you are saying.
Good Day!
OK, let's try the abbreviated version. I want you to answer this question: What is your proposed "objective measurement for entitlement"? If I'm the patent office and someone submits an application for a software patent, how do you think I should decide objectively whether to issue them a patent?
Go Sammy! Show the world how Microsoft really is! Microsoft is like a leech, if you can't beat them, slowly suck their life blood!
What is your proposed "objective measurement for entitlement"?
I didn't say I have the answer; I said that is what people should be thinking about: The fact that we still need to ask that question is the crux of the problems, and the answer to that question is the crux of the solution.
In other words, that's a very good question. I hope that a Mathematician will one day take the time to characterize the issue and prepare a decent formula.
Your thinking is based on poor abstractions.
There are nothing but descriptions. Everything is a description. Everything is information.
While 'F=ma' describes a facet of 'a jet engine', that same facet of 'a jet engine' describes 'F=ma'.
The Universe is just a manifestation of a particular set of laws---some mathematical theory, which we happen to call 'physics'. They are one and the same: There is no fundamental difference between the symbols we write on paper and the phenomena that occur in the Universe; they are manifestations of the same thing (of course, our symbols and such are really good approximations within certain conditions, because it is difficult to make an exact copy of the Universe's information).
While 'F=ma' describes a facet of 'a jet engine', that same facet of 'a jet engine' describes 'F=ma'.
The relation is not symmetrical. The engine is an embodiment, not a description. You cannot leave the ground using only an equation.
I'm sorry that you don't understand.