B&N Sought DoJ Inquiry Over Microsoft Patents

Meshach writes "There's an interesting story at the WSJ about how Barnes & Noble lobbied the Justice Department to open a new antitrust probe against Microsoft regarding their abuse of the patent system. B&N saw Microsoft filing a slew of frivolous patents in order to stop the development of handheld devices, potentially affecting their Nook reader. The article mentions how Microsoft has a similar racket going with various Android device manufacturers, but B&N does not have the cash reserves to support similar licensing, and is fighting back." Reader qantr points out related news: Chinese telecoms firm Huawei has confirmed that Microsoft is demanding royalty payments over products running Android.

Comments

Time to buy a Nook

[ozmanjusri]

Microsoft are nothing but vile patent trolls, screwing everybody, including their customers.

Support B&N with your wallets. Most of all, don't buy Microsoft products.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[erroneus]

Say what you want about Microsoft (or Apple for that matter) but trolls they are not... at least not in the patent abuse sense of the word. They have been on the giving and receiving end of the game and while they "net benefit" from the system as it is, they have certainly been harmed in some measurable ways.

What they are doing, however, is using the patent system to supplement and maintain their income. I think proper references need to be cited on this, but I seem to recall something about how Microsoft is making more money from Android devices than they are from their own mobile hand-held devices. Microsoft isn't even trying to compete very hard, but they are making products for sale.

(In Apple's case, they seem to be using the system to keep their products on top... it's a perverted form of "competition" at least... very perverted)

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[gmhowell]

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Anonymous Coward]

B&N refutes Microsoft because the litigation is about some few patents regarding cosmetic features from an operating system that has a much more number of features and is asking the equivalent in money of the entire license of Windows Mobile.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[MrDoh!]

I'm curious what the actual patents are, if it's just using FAT on SDCards, can't these devices format to ext(something) to work around that?

I also feel a bit sorry for Microsoft in regards to tablets, BillG was pushing for all this YEARS ago, WinCE, whilst not good, was quick to... hmm.. rip off? the layout of other stuff whenever possible, When WinCE was codenamed... Pegasus? Showed they were really trying to get into the PalmPilot Factor, when before they were aiming for the mini-netbook layouts. If they'd have kept the pressure up, and admitted that the Windows UI, as is, just isn't suitable for the formfactor it was aiming for, they'd have been perfectly positioned to take over the tablet market before ANYONE else got a look in I suspect. Boss in.. 2002 I think it was had a Toshiba that had a reasonable touchscreen you could swivel around and scribble on too, but there just wasn't the software for a long time to really make use of it.

But MS DID do a huge amount of research, tried a massive amount of things out on what would be needed, which is why they've got the patent folio they have. I wish they'd have used them to make a decent tablet 6-7 years ago, but that's MS without BillG now. Unable to 'get' the paradigm shifts occurring in computing.

Not fully a patent troll, they're using a lot of the things they patented, but they've not really invested in the hardware that others have. Nor made the deals (until now with WP7.5) that could have placed them in a far better position to compete.

Of course, that's not to say they're using these patents to bash over the heads of all the WindowsPhone capable producers for decent licensing rates, but as the market has spoken so far, it just doesn't appear to want WindowsPhone. As MS continues to fail, I can see them raising the Android cost until the phone makers start getting just as aggressive back and go after Nokia, MS's newest subsidary. (and it really is only a matter of time before Nokia gets absorbed).

MS were worried the Playstations in the home were going to take over the market for PCs, they missed the phones, and are scrambling to recover. Patent wars will continue to grow.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[SuricouRaven]

For a phone's internal storage, no problem - they aren't even FAT, no problem there. But SD cards aren't internal storage. They are used to transfer files too. A means of putting data on and off a phone. Let's just say that Android did as you propose and put the card as ext3. All works very well, until you plug the phone into a PC with a USB cable and select storage device mode. At which point... nothing happens, if you're running a Windows desktop, as the vast majority do. Because Windows only supports but three filesystems on non-optical media: FAT(12/16/32), NTFS and ExFAT. All three of which are MS-developed and MS-patented. Sure, Android could run without FAT, but only by abandoning Windows compatibility - and in a world where almost everyone runs Windows and most of the rest run OSX (Which also supports only those three plus the apple-patented HPFS varients), that simply isn't an option.

The ideal solution would be for someone to design an open-standards unpatented FAT alternative and everyone to support that, but there isn't a snowball's hope in Hell that Microsoft would build support for such a filesystem into Windows, and no-one is going to bother designing it when they know that no removeable-media filesystem can catch on without Microsoft's blessing.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Bert64]

For MS it's not about making money from Android, thats a side benefit... Their actual goal is to drive up the cost of Android and to dissuade companies from using it at all. Their end game is to get users locked into their platform instead.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh please, Microsoft is every bit a patent troll as Apple is.
What the hell do you think this attack on Android is ? Party time ?
No one wants WP, no one cares a fuck about WP. So what does Microsoft do, instead of competing by improving WP they extort the competition in such a way as to make that shit of WP less costly than Android.
Microsoft is a criminal enterprise. They have been convicted in the past and it seems time has not changed their modus operandi. They need to be striked down and if the US won't do it then maybe the EU will be up to the task.
Mobile phone makers don't want the same situation of the pc space where Microsoft made all the profits and left mere cents to everybody else. They all learned (except Nokia). And since the market doesn't want WP what to do, what to do ? Sue everybody into submission. Way to go Microsoft, a shit company. Always was, always will be; Bill Gates or not Bill Gates at the helm.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[md65536]

I seem to recall something about how Microsoft is making more money from Android devices than they are from their own mobile hand-held devices.

I'm making more money selling lemonade on the street than ms is making from their phones. But then, I've sold a few glasses of lemonade.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Anonymous Coward]

Forced incompatibility is anti-competitive, microsoft should be fined and a consent decree issued to correct the fraudulent behaviour

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[MrDoh!]

Plug in the device, first thing it does is download the drivers to translate the files as needed, whilst still keeping them on ext3? (though probably a patent for that too).
Bah, when does FAT patent run out?

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont blame microsoft.
These are the silly rules that the silly patent system and goverments have decided on.

Complaining to MS or others wont help. If nothing else they are victims too.

If you want to fight the patent system, you should start filing stupid patents, the more the better, and sell them to patent trolls.
Patent system will not change unless it becomes too expensive not to fix it. So go out and abuse it more. Nothing else can bring an end to the insanity.

Embrace the trolls as your agents of change. Register silly patents and give to the trolls until the system collapses. That is how to win/change.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[SuricouRaven]

Download... how? The only way you are getting files from USB device to Windows host is via FAT (or NTFS, or ExFAT - same problem). Besides which, adding filesystem support couldn't be done by just any user - only by a local administrator account. Fine for those on their home PCs, not so fine for those who want to quickly plug their phone in at a friend's or at work.

That said, it might be a good idea for Google to design and endorse an open patent-free FAT-replacement - as they are the only company who has even the slightest hope of getting it widely adopted. It's a long shot even for them though.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Joce640k]

...and you didn't have many R&D expenses.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[peppepz]

Abusing a ridiculous patent about "long file names" to extort money from people who are using that technique only to provide interoperability with their monopolist OS looks much like patent trolling to me - the difference is that they do have a product, which the market rejected, implementing that feature, unlike typical patent trolls. But the intentions and the result are the same.

Google, for example, are playing in the same game and by the same rules: they buy patents and pay licenses, but I haven't seen them using their patent portfolio for offensive purposes yet.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[MrDoh!]

For windows machines, the device would ID itself, download the drivers, then be seen in whatever format it needed to be.
For macos/linux, ext partitions would be read natively?
Don't know, just throwing it out there, that it might not be needed to be in FAT format, if the device you plug into can easily (operative word!) download the required drivers to get access.

That'd cover most people perhaps, then a market download to cover FAT access if you really need it (and for camera access?)

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[peppepz]

Dont blame microsoft. These are the silly rules that the silly patent system and goverments have decided on. Complaining to MS or others wont help. If nothing else they are victims too.

No they aren' t. Other companies are playing with the same rules but they don't act that way. Example given: Google.

Microsoft are just being Microsoft, as they always do and as they've always done.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Pembers]

Until a few years ago, you could've (ab)used the autorun feature to make that work, but since malware writers finally got around to exploiting the gaping security hole that autorun represents, Microsoft now disable it by default. So you're back where you started.

Support for long filenames in FAT appeared in Windows 95, so any patents on it ought to expire in the next few years. FAT32 came in with Windows 95 OSR 2 - I'm too lazy to look up when that was released, but patents on it probably haven't got much longer. I don't imagine it's a coincidence that Microsoft are pushing a replacement for these filesystems.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[ninetyninebottles]

and in a world where almost everyone runs Windows and most of the rest run OSX (Which also supports only those three plus the apple-patented HPFS varients), that simply isn't an option.

As a side note, without plug-ins OS X also supports UDF and UFS for external storage. Both are workable solutions if you only use non-windows platforms.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Anonymous Coward]

>Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Yes and/or no, maybe.

(Zeroeth of all: hate is a strong word. It doesn't imply rationality. Don't hate. Be opposed with a calm, matter-of-factly demeanor.)

Sure, the game is the fundamental problem and if it wasn't for one player filling a void on the board, then another one would, as long as the game is so fundamentally flawed that you can be real bad even within the frame of the rules.

But what does not hating the player (or the legitimate, albeit immoral, actions of said player, at least) accomplish?

The right thing to do would be to do the right thing even if the wrong thing is allowed.

So, in conclusion:

Disapprove of the actions of the player. Disapprove of the game.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Rockoon]

Other companies are playing with the same rules but they don't act that way. Example given: Google.

Funny that Google (aka Motorola Mobility) just won a patent suit against Apple in Germany. Notice that you didn't notice.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[gl4ss]

it's only driving the cost up if you're not at the same time selling ms phones.

sad, isn't it? the mobile business is still held by the same few big manufacturers, by means of ip-racketeering.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Anonymous Coward]

Should have said legal, not legitimate. Legitimate would mean the actions were ethically correct (right?), when the point was they aren't, even if they may be legal.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Anonymous Coward]

MS would never do that. Like Apple, they will only support their own defaults. NTFS has been around for years, it's the ubiquitous filesystem on external HDs, but even today Apple will not have NTFS drivers and require third party purchases costing $45 before you can access NTFS volumes. Windows is the same, MS will not work to have their users have access to alternative files systems.

Today we have HDTV and media players playing media directly from USB HDs. The machines themselves use ext3, but they will only support FAT and NTFS on the USB drives. Even that isn't enough for Apple to add NTFS.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[JasterBobaMereel]

Great idea now you just have to get Microsoft certify this driver and to incorporate into Windows update ...

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[nedwidek]

Google does not own Motorola Mobility yet. That is purely Motorola's fight.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[peppepz]

They were sued by Apple first. Notice the difference.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Anonymous Coward]

explain how google is able to give motorola patents to htc

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[gl4ss]

how do you autorun if you don't have fat?

well, you could use iso format, for read only drivers partition I suppose.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Rockoon]

Motorola shot at Apple first on October 6th, 2010.

Apple didnt fire back at Motorola until October 29th, 2010.

Ah, but those are U.S. lawsuits.

We can discuss the ones strictly in Germany, where again Motorola shot first in April, 2011 while Apple didn't fire back until May 27th, 2011.

The facts suck, eh?

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[TheGratefulNet]

do those glasses have rounded edges on them?

don't worry, your apple police squad is on their way there. yes, we used the gps you have to aid us in finding you.

I wonder when the first terrorism-related thing happens due to some vp or ceo or some whackjob losing it over being patent-troll sued.

people in this society are on edge, in many ways. the more you push people, the more we can expect problems to happen.

either we de-escalate things so that we don't have everyone on a hair trigger, or we pay the piper when the idiots freak out.

we are most definitely in a pressure cooker right now. the patent stuff, the net neutrality stuff, everything else that is encroaching our freedoms and chosen way of life is going up and up and up.

maybe some guy with a gun and a 'manifesto' that makes the papers will finally call attention to this madness. sure seem that we are not able to work this out 'on our own' in peaceful terms.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[SuricouRaven]

Actually OSX does support NTFS, but only in read-only. Can't write them with stock OSX. You can install fuse though, that'll do it.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[peppepz]

Google didn't buy Motorola until August 2011.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Pembers]

A small partition at the start of the drive formatted as FAT16 or FAT32 that contains the drivers. The rest of the space is a big partition formatted as ext-whatever. I have a 256-meg USB drive with a floppy-sized partition that contains some sort of driver for Windows 95 or 98, presumably so that you can format the big partition without making the drive useless with any computer where you didn't install the driver.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[peppepz]

Actually, they *announced* they wanted to buy Motorola Mobility in August 2011.

Until november 17 Motorola hadn't even voted yet on whether to accept Google's offer.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Rockoon]

So you are saying that they had 3 months to end the lawsuits that Google is supposedly opposed to, but didn't anyways.

Too bad you started with false information (that Google isn't litigious), and then tried to defend it with more false information (that Apple litigated first.) Now that you are trying to find some actual truth that separates Google from the rest, its too late.. you've lost your credibility with me.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[larry bagina]

Instead of talking about some guy with a gun and a manifesto, maybe you should be that guy with a gun and a manifesto.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Anonymous Coward]

"Say what you want about Microsoft" is a scripted response provided to all of Microsoft's reputation management partners.

Whenever you see that phrase, you know it'll be one of the standard, carefully slanted apologist screeds. Very clever stuff.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Say+what+you+want+about+Microsoft&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&lr=lang_en#pq=say+what+you+want+about+microsoft&hl=en&sugexp=ppwl&cp=1&gs_id=45&xhr=t&q=%22Say+what+you+want+about+Microsoft%22&tok=Rc2-00AgyNDmPNWliZKo0A&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&lr=lang_en&safe=off&tbs=lr:lang_1en&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=%22Say+what+you+want+about+Microsoft%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.,cf.osb&fp=ab0947b33f38f3e6&biw=1920&bih=1034

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[godefroi]

You're confused. You might be able to get Windows to download the USB device driver (assuming it wasn't USB Mass Storage, which it is), but it wouldn't download a filesystem driver. Filesystems aren't devices.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[peppepz]

The false information from my side was only that Apple litigated first - I was convinced of that, because I confused Motorola with Samsung.

The false information from you is that Google is Motorola Mobility. It isn't. The acquisition hasn't happened yet. Google has no control over what Motorola does, whatsoever. You're angry against the wrong people.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[SiChemist]

The problem with that is windows only recognizes the first partition on (small) removable media (it pretends that USB thumb drives are CDROMs). I have a USB thumb drive that has 2 partitions, but windows only sees the first one. So far as I know, this is with all versions of windows.

This problem does not exist with USB hard drives which windows correctly detects as an external hard drive.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[TubeSteak]

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

In this game, we allow the players to design the rules.
It's pretty much a recipe for disaster.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[SiChemist]

Oh noes! Peppepz has lost his credibility with you! How will he go on?

Back on topic, as pointed out several times to you above, Google does not own Motorola Mobility.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[xaxa]

Because Windows only supports but three filesystems on non-optical media: FAT(12/16/32), NTFS and ExFAT.

I've just read elsewhere in the thread that Windows supports UDF (the open-standards unpatented alternative), in which case the problem is not with Windows, but with other devices that don't support UDF (i.e. I can have a UDF support in my hypothetical new Android phone, and my laptop and desktop, but I can't use that UDF-formatted SD card in my digital camera or the photo-gallery thing on the TV).

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Anonymous Coward]

Say what you want about Microsoft (or Apple for that matter) but trolls they are not... at least not in the patent abuse sense of the word. They have been on the giving and receiving end of the game and while they "net benefit" from the system as it is, they have certainly been harmed in some measurable ways.

What they are doing, however, is using the patent system to supplement and maintain their income. I think proper references need to be cited on this, but I seem to recall something about how Microsoft is making more money from Android devices than they are from their own mobile hand-held devices. Microsoft isn't even trying to compete very hard, but they are making products for sale.

(In Apple's case, they seem to be using the system to keep their products on top... it's a perverted form of "competition" at least... very perverted)

What both microsoft and apple are is nothing more than trolls pure and simple sorry an all that

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Anonymous Coward]

Hate both. Microsoft isn't just using it patents portfolio just to defend itself, it uses it to attack. The way they play the game matters.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Rockoon]

Google gave Motorola patents to HTC.

Given this fact, please explain how Google is not, in the only way that matters, Motorola Mobility. Google is fucking giving Motorola patents away.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[WorBlux]

Which is quite crazy, however I've seen a driver hacks where it is treated like a compact flash hard drive.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[SiChemist]

Today’s infringement filing by HTC may be the first time that Google is exercising its patent portfolio to help an Android partner. The nine patents involved were transferred to HTC from Google on September 1. Three of the patents originated from Openwave Systems, two from Palm, and four from Motorola. These patents were acquired prior to Google’s $12.5 billion bid for Motorola...

Link here: http://www.slashgear.com/htc-sues-apple-using-google-motorola-patents-07177865/

So, Google acquired those patents from Motorola before their acquisition bid. Saying Google is Motorola is akin to saying that Google is IBM since they've acquired patents from them as well.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[RazorSharp]

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

The way I understand it, extortion was never legal, regardless of the legal status of software patents.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[Pembers]

Hmm. I have to say it wouldn't surprise me, this being Windows and all, but my drive worked in Windows 7 and XP SP 3. The manual says it doesn't work in Windows 2000 - you can only have one partition per USB socket there.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[jbengt]

IRC, the original FAT filesystem is not covered by patents. The long filename hack to FAT that allowed it to be compatible with older 8.3 versions of FAT without losing long filenames in newer versions is what the FAT patent fuss is about.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[CapuchinSeven]

Oh please, Microsoft is every bit a patent troll as Apple is.

I don't think Slashdot posters these days actually know what this term means, please stop saying things when you don't know what they mean.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[avgjoe62]

Why not just have your Android device use the USB connection as a hard-wired network connection and transfer files using SFTP or similar? Won't matter what file system the Android uses for local storage since all transfers will be done between operating systems, instead of using the Androids storage as an external hard drive for the Windows machine.

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[SuricouRaven]

Do you want to go and convince Microsoft to build into Windows a technology that is used for the sole purpose of working around their patent?

Re:Time to buy a Nook

[EETech1]

From what I can recall, it took a little hacking around with drivers to get USB working at all in Windows2000.

Geeks don't have $$

[Compaqt]

So the next best thing we can hope for is that the interests of various corporations align with the general geek consensus for an open Internet and the right to develop software:

For an open Internet: Google
For the right to copy (not infringing copies): the Consumer Electronics Association.
Against patents: B&N, Google/Motorola, various Linux foundations.

Re:Geeks don't have $$

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it's much worse than that.

Next time you go die in a war, think about who lobbied for it.

If money directs justice, does justice really exist?

Re:Geeks don't have $$

[Chrisq]

Next time you go die in a war, think about who lobbied for it.

I already did that last time I died in a war.

Re:Geeks don't have $$

[Anonymous Coward]

Greeks don't have $$.
Corrected that for you!

Re:Geeks don't have $$

[dimeglio]

I believe Canada, UK and Europe don't recognize software patents. Does this mean some software will not be legal in the US?

From Wikipedia:
United Kingdom patent law is interpreted to have the same effect as the European Patent Convention such that "programs for computers" are excluded from patentability to the extent that a patent application relates to a computer program "as such". Current case law in the UK states that an (alleged) invention will only be actually regarded as an invention if it provides a contribution that is not excluded and which is also technical. A computer program implementing a business process is therefore not an invention, but a computer program implementing an industrial process may well be.

From another source:
In June 1993, the Canadian Patent Office replaced its August 1, 1978 guidelines and published them for the "information and guidance" of practitioners. They were:
    "1. Computer programs per se are not patentable.
        2. Processes which are unapplied mathematical calculations, even if expressed in words rather than in mathematical symbols, are not patentable.
        3. A process and/or computer program which merely produces information for mental interpretation by a human being is not patentable, nor does the process or program confer novelty upon the apparatus which uses it.
        4. Claims drawn up in terms of means plus function which merely produces intellectual data are not patentable.
        5. New and useful processes incorporating a programmed computer, are directed to patentable subject matter if the computer related matter has been integrated with another practical system that falls within an area which is traditionally patentable.
        6. The presence of a programmed general purpose computer or a program for such computer does not lend patentability to, nor subtract patentability from, an apparatus or process."

Re:Geeks don't have $$

[JasterBobaMereel]

Yes, this means some perfectly legal software is illegal (or needs additional patent licences) in the USA

The problem for a company like Google is that they are US based and so will be hounded in the US courts, and for other companies it means they will have difficulty selling into the US, or having to produce two versions of a product on for the US market and one for non-US

Do you remember the two versions of browsers, one with strong encryption one without ... due to US export laws ....

Re:Geeks don't have $$

[Anonymous Coward]

For an open Internet: Google

well... if you look at what goog is doing to lock up geodata, it kinda smashes the illusion that they are that open. mapmaker is awfully evil, although well disguised, project - community works for free but data ends up being closed. very, very nasty.

I'm Glad

[sunr2007]

that B &N is showing MS that they have balls which other big companies like Samsung , HTC din't. It doesnt matter whether B & N succeed or not atleast they have shown the intent to fight Troll called MS. This could be the next David Vs Goliath fight.

Re:I'm Glad

[Xest]

The problem for companies like Samsung and HTC is that because they are American companies they suffer greatly in US courts as frankly American courts are extremely biased towards American companies, presumably stemming from it's national disease of over the top patriotism and general high levels of xenophobia. That's not to say this is always the case, but if you're a foreign company going up against a US firm in US courts, then the odds are stacked far more greatly against you than say a foreign company fighting a native firm in Canadian, or European courts which is again not to say it doesn't happen there too - just not so frequently.

It's no coincidence really that the firms that have folded against Microsoft are the foreign ones, and the ones fighting it are the American ones - Google, Motorola, B&N. If you want a slice of America's consumer pie, you have to accept that you'll play second place to American companies.

Other industries have been used to this for decades- you only have to ask companies like Airbus and BP about that, or any of the companies that led to complaints against the US via the WTO which have resulted in rulings against the US but which the US has chosen to completely ignore be it lumber from Canada or cotton from Brazil, but with the patent war hotting up it's becoming a painful reality for the mobile industry now too.

Re:I'm Glad

[JasterBobaMereel]

BP is not a good example .... they were formed by a merger of several companies, the largest was Amoco (A merger of large parts of Standard Oil), along with several other American Oil Companies, are currently run by an American, and the investors are 40% American, (and only 30% UK)

They are about as British as New England ....

Re:I'm Glad

[Xest]

It doesn't really matter though, if a company doesn't have pure American roots, isn't "made in America" or at least not seen that way by the xenophobes then for all intents and purposes it may as well have originated purely in Iran.

The problem isn't the real, actual grounding of a company, it's the perceived patriotic merit the company has, and BP historically always being known as British Petroleum there just isn't much patriotic merit in that. You only have to look at how many commentators and even Obama himself referred to it as that when trying to score political points with the xenophobes in a "hey, I'm slapping this evil foreign company down!" kind of way even though that hasn't been it's real name for some time.

Re:I'm Glad

[TheGratefulNet]

american this and american that.

you have fallen for the rhetoric, full on, haven't you?

those in power laugh at you (and me) while we play these futile us-vs-them games.

just like R and D in the US political system. either way, you are owned. almost does not matter anymore who you 'vote' for; you will get the same treatment from 'the 1%' no matter what.

stop thinking this is a country border issue. you sound like a chump when you fall for the propaganda machine's bleatings.

Re:I'm Glad

[krinderlin]

Why do Europeans always hold us up as the poster child for rampant xenophobia?

The UK rhetoric sounds a lot like some of the commentary coming out of Arizona, United States. Italy's Northern League is doing the same thing.

So seriously, just stop. Xenophobia and over-the-top patriotism is indicative of a people wallowing in fear prodded by power hungry governments distracting their own citizens with an "us versus them" construct. It's visible and present in every culture on the planet because other cultures are the easiest scape goat to lay your problems upon.

Re:I'm Glad

[SiChemist]

Or, it could be that HTC and Samsung make Windows phones and would like to continue to do so.

Re:I'm Glad

[RazorSharp]

While your theory is interesting, it would help if you had better evidence to back it up. The BP example doesn't hold much water and Airbus is more of a military-industrial complex issue than evidence of a xenophobic bias on the part of the American judiciary.

Re:I'm Glad

[cavreader]

"Why do Europeans always hold us up as the poster child for rampant xenophobia?" Because they actually believe everything they see in the movies and it makes them feel better about themselves. They also think the only news media outlet in the US is Fox. For some strange reason they think the Internet based news outlets are a state secret and the US citizens are being prevented from accessing them. In reality the US is comprised of the most ethnically, racially,diverse, and integrated population on the entire planet. Go to any medium to large size city and you will find areas that are voluntarily dominated by nationality and ethnicity. You have Chinese (China Town), Italians (Little Italy), Koreans, South Americans, Cubans, Mexicans (sub sect of South American), Russians, and any other ethnic groups who have made there way to the US. You will find every type of religion from paganism to Roman Catholic spread across the entire country. The US has more Mosque's than most of the middle east combined. When not killing westerners the Muslims in the middle east usually like to concentrate on killing each other over the Sunni and Shia doctrinal differences. Even England has had more than a few conflicts over Catholics versus Protestants. I can't really envision the Methodists going after the Baptists in the US killing each other over doctrinal differences. Europeans (and pretty much everyone else in the world) are fond of using anecdotal incidents to brand the entire country as bigots, morons, bible thumpers, and xenophobes. Sure there have been racial and ethnicity fueled demonstrations and violent incidents in US history but they are minuscule when compared across the entire history of the country. Europe likes to complain about Americans not learning foreign languages but take a close look at a world map and you will see there really has not been a reason for Americans to learn any foreign languages with the possible exception of Spanish. Ever damn country in Europe has a different language and if you expect to live in the area you need to learn at least some of them. It would be like each US state having it's own language and if that was the case learning a foreign language would be carry more weight on the to do list. All the criticism being directed at the US is starting to filter down to the general population and they are starting to reciprocate that disdain and hatred to the rest of the world. There is a reason the UN is despised by a majority of the US citizens and that percentage is growing daily. The politicians currently attacking the UN and anything related to the UN would not be taking that position if they believed it would cost them politically. The US. like every other country has the same problems and challenges but most of the criticism hurled at the US is based on pure propaganda and misinformation and this is pushing us down the path to conflict, hostility, and eventually violence. Hopefully I will be good and dead before smart phones have radiation level detection apps.

Re:I'm Glad

[Anonymous Coward]

One advice young Padawan:
If you want to be read, use paragraphs.

Re:I'm Glad

[cavreader]

I have a hard enough time just typing this shit on my little phone keyboard.

One need only look at the patents

[Anonymous Coward]

to say WTF

if android uses VFAT.. they have to pay royalties?

what about the principles behind the EUs decision to force microsoft to license protocols for interopability, shouldnt the same apply to VFAT?

this is ridiculous

Re:One need only look at the patents

[SuricouRaven]

MS did invent both the original FAT filesystem and it's derivatives, and still holds some important patents - most noteably one on storing both a long filename and a short filename in one filesystem for backwards compatibility purposes. It's also the reason behind ExFAT: Everyone knows that FAT32's days are numbered, and Microsoft wants to make sure that what replaces it is a filesystem they still hold patents on, and not some open standard. ExFAT will eventually come to replace FAT for removeable media, simply because it's the only FAT-replacement that Windows supports without third-party extensions.

Re:One need only look at the patents

[Rockoon]

what about the principles behind the EUs decision to force microsoft to license protocols for interopability

Microsoft did try to license them. B&N refused to talk. Here we are.

Re:One need only look at the patents

[peppepz]

Actually Windows supports UDF out of the box, too. And it works well, much better than FAT, almost in every case where FAT is used today.

Anyway, it's too late to care about that, because Microsoft managed to inject exFAT into the relevant standards for SD cards, so we'll have to keep dealing with them in the near future, whether we like it or not.

Re:One need only look at the patents

[andydread]

Microsoft is using gangster extortion tactics.

In Barnes & Noble's own words to the court:-
At the meeting, Microsoft alleged that the Nook infringed six patents purportedly owned by Microsoft. Microsoft had prepared claim charts purportedly detailing the alleged infringement but insisted that it would only share the detailed claim charts if Barnes & Noble agreed to sign a non-disclosure agreement (“NDA”) that would cover the claim charts as well as all other aspects of the parties’ discussions. Noting that the patents were public and that the infringement allegations pertained to Barnes & Noble’s public product, Barnes & Noble refused to sign an NDA.

Insisting that an NDA was necessary, Microsoft discussed the alleged infringement on a high level basis only. Microsoft nevertheless maintained that it possessed patents sufficient to dominate and entirely preclude the use of the Android Operating System by the Nook. Microsoft demanded an exorbitant royalty (on a per device basis) for a license to its patent portfolio for the Nook device and at the end of the meeting Microsoft stated that it would demand an even higher per device royalty for any device that acted “more like a computer” as opposed to an eReader.

After sending the proposed license agreement, Microsoft confirmed the shockingly high licensing fees Microsoft was demanding, reiterating its exorbitant per device royalty for Nook, and for the first time demanding a royalty for Nook Color which was more than double the per device royalty Microsoft was demanding for Nook. On information and belief, the license fees demanded by Microsoft are higher than what Microsoft charges for a license to its entire operating system designed for mobile devices, Windows Phone 7

So Microsoft is not trying to license their trivial, dubious software-patents under Fair Reasonable and NON Discriminatory terms. They are trying to drive up the cost of open source beyond what it would cost to purchase windows from them. They are sleazy slimy bullies. Will no longer use or recommend their products to ANYONE.

Re:One need only look at the patents

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I never considered myself an MS hater/basher, but reading stuff like that makes me wonder if I should become one :(

Re:One need only look at the patents

[Rockoon]

Every company in the industry that enters into licensing talks with any other company signs NDA's before doing so. Both parties interested in talking want the NDA.

B&N didnt want to sign the NDA because B&N wasnt interested in talking. Thats does not mean extortion.... what it means is that because B&N have no patents of their own, that they are going to have to pay full price. A lawsuit delays paying for the technology that they use, which is what they want... a delay.

Re:One need only look at the patents

[m50d]

Do we know how much MS changes for Windowws Phone 7? I can easily imagine them giving it away under the circumstances.

Re:One need only look at the patents

[Anonymous Coward]

why are forming some giant theory about microsoft based about what barnes and noble is self-servingly saying?

Re:One need only look at the patents

[Raenex]

Both parties interested in talking want the NDA.

If you feel you're being shaken down for money, signing an NDA doesn't benefit you. Would you sign an NDA with an extortionist?

Re:One need only look at the patents

[SuricouRaven]

I knew it works on optical media, but wasn't aware it supported UDF on hdd-like removeable media.

Re:One need only look at the patents

[rrossman2]

Only some systems do... if you still run XP systems, exFAT (FAT64) is a no go without additional downloads

Re:One need only look at the patents

[del_diablo]

That stops being relevant when we are not talking 2 companies who each have their blackboxes who is internal development.
The situation is that MS has some blackboxes, and a insane patent portofolio, VS B&N who is using open source techology. If they sign any NDLA, it means that the community will never get to know what the real problems is, and MS can keep on blackmailing firms into paying for something that is not a valid patent in the first place.
To make a bit more valid example:
MS: Good day sir, you and all your partners may or may not be infriging any patents we own
B&N: Good day to you too sit, but what patents might I ask? We don't have anything inhouse, so let us fix them
MS: Please sign this NDLA first, and then pay the fee
B&N: But the portofoilo is not ours, we are merely contributing, so do you mind telling us what exact patents we and all our partners are infringing?
MS: Why would I do that? I have lawyers, and you can't afford court
B&N: *sighs*
Its blackmail and extortion, because they refuse to disclose their patents. In "normal" cases, but companies do not want to disclose because it would mean any rival firms will get a full look at what technology they are developing, but in this case the firms are a bit more like glasshouses instead of blackboxes.

Re:One need only look at the patents

[Qzukk]

So Microsoft is not trying to license their trivial, dubious software-patents under Fair Reasonable and NON Discriminatory terms. They are trying to drive up the cost of open source beyond what it would cost to purchase windows from them.

Alternatively, they're aware that Windows Mobile is a steaming pile of shit that nobody wants, and have priced it accordingly while they focus on making money from better goods.

Re:One need only look at the patents

[Dr_Barnowl]

MS are trying to charge for patent licenses that cover a fraction of the features in their mobile OS, a fee that is more than that for their entire mobile OS.

That is extortion. They are trying to punish vendors who select a non-MS OS for their device, because it raises the popularity of those non-MS platforms by demonstrating that devices without MS software are possible, functional, and even desirable. To serve as an example to the others, they make damn sure that people know they are receiving more in patent license royalties for Android devices than they are in sales for their own product.

I think it rather backfires on them though ; it just illustrates that Android is the more desirable platform, to the degree that manufacturers are *willing* to pay MS their protection money.

And given that MS had a very strong history of trying to conceal the list of patents involved, refusing an NDA would have been a viable delaying tactic for anyone. Other manufacturers, as you rightly point out, had an alternate, lower-risk approach, which was brandishing their own patent portfolio in a threatening manner. But it would still have been a viable tactic for any of them.

Since the MS patents are indeed public documents, it does seem that the only reason that there would be any kind of commercial advantage worth protecting with an NDA, in a list of those documents, would be that MS are not confident that these patents would stand up to wider scrutiny. The other reason would be that other manufacturers might be able to produce a product that avoids infringement, instead of committing to a product, releasing it, then being retrospectively attacked by MS.

MS have no interest in permitting either of those things

Re:One need only look at the patents

[Smallpond]

Every company in the industry that enters into licensing talks with any other company signs NDA's before doing so. Both parties interested in talking want the NDA.

This is only true if what they are licensing is confidential technology. Patents are public. I've been in patent licensing talks. There were no NDAs. In fact the licensor wants it known that you signed a license and are paying royalties which is the case here with the Android users.

Re:One need only look at the patents

[andydread]

Microsoft wanted them to sign a NDA to even tell them what software-patents they were purportedly violating. Software-patents that are public information. They refused to sign a NDA to discuss public information. The purpose of patents is for the betterment of the arts by producing information to the public on how your invention works. If people are violating your public software-patents then tell them which ones they are violating so that they can stop violating them. Its that simple. Forcing them to keep secret the software-patents that you are extorting them over is sleazy. This is mobster extortion tactics.

Re:One need only look at the patents

[Rockoon]

This is only true if what they are licensing is confidential technology.

Wrong.

If you allow the other party to go telling competitors about what the deal contains, then you are a big giant-assed fucking moron. Thats why both parties always insist on NDA's.

Now stop making things up.

Re:One need only look at the patents

[Rockoon]

If people are violating your public software-patents then tell them which ones they are violating so that they can stop violating them.

Of course. The question on the table is when do you tell them.

Do you:

a) Tell them when they just refused to negotiate licensing.
b) When you get to court seeking damages because they refused to negotiate licensing.

This isnt rocket science.

Re:One need only look at the patents

[Smallpond]

"Microsoft has already extracted per-device royalty agreements for Android products from at least 10 companies, including Samsung, the world's largest smartphone maker, HTC, Compal Electronics (whose customers include Dell, HP and Toshiba), Quanta Computer, Wistron, General Dynamics Itronix, Velocity Micro, Onkyo, Acer, and Viewsonic."

Wow. Those deals are secret, all right. If you want the terms for licensing check here Typical industry terms are 1% of gross profit on the product per patent. I guess there must be at least one moron around here.

Re:One need only look at the patents

[Duhavid]

"When you get to court seeking damages because they refused to negotiate licensing"

Why would someone be damaged because another refused to negotiate licensing?
Esp if they are willing to end the supposed use of whatever is patented?

Re:One need only look at the patents

[ratboy666]

"Invent" FAT? Um... how about a more accurate "implemented a singly linked list allocation system".

There were three ways to do it (yes, I know this is incomplete, but only three where in use) - allocation map, linked list, contiguous files. All of these had at several implementations by the time Microsoft released FAT. Which is why FAT is not patented.

Putting extended names into multiple directory entries (VFAT) was patented. Shouldn't have been. CP/M used multiple directory entries to cover file "extents" (data, not name). But is similar enough. Unix used "inode" extension to increase data coverage as well. And, Unix put filenames INTO a file - and this is isomorphic to VFAT. The only argument that would hold is that Unix only permitted 14 character file names. But, if a directory file was large enough to break into two allocation inodes, a filename may be split into two inodes. Exactly the case that happens with VFAT.

Bloomberg version of this . . .

[PolygamousRanchKid]

See my submission for Bloomberg's non-paywall version: http://slashdot.org/submission/1842986/barnes-noble-urges-us-to-probe-microsoft-o

Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

What they're doing is avoiding a lawsuit against Google, and instead going after licensees of Android. If they went after Google, Google would fight it and thus reveal the origin of the inventions they are claiming.

They come to some arrangement, which looks like it's really a fake agreement (e.g. you pay us $45 million, and we pay you $45 million back in marketing and discounts - which is what the Samsung deal is rumoured to be). They they present the payment to them as a license fee for Android to create a false cost associated with Android.

All done under NDA so the details of the fraud are not revealed and investors are kept in the dark.

Re:Trolls

[Locutus]

if you read up on the B&N complaints about Microsoft it was indeed about how they insisted and even tried various tricks to get B&N to sign an NDA or act as if they were still under one. The B&N lawyers kept saying we don't need any NDA to read public patents so just give a list.

What you stated sounds just like the Microsoft I've known for 20+ years and would not surprise me.

Too bad so many think Microsoft is doing this to make money from the licensing.

LoB

Re:Trolls

[peragrin]

Right now Microsoft is making more money on andriod from secert NDA patent deals with HTC, Samsung, etc than all of windiws mobile.

That is a fact. Why dont you learn some more on just what those secert patents are? Oh wait they are secret patents you cant now what it is your paying for ever.

Re:Trolls

[blarkon]

Google can jump in anytime. MSFT has said to the orgs licensing Windows Phone that if someone tries to take them to court over patent infringement, MSFT will come to court with them and will fight the suit. Why GOOG didn't offer something similar to its licensees is beyond me.

Re:Trolls

[chrb]

Possibly because Google didn't actually create most of Android, or even own it eg. the Linux kernel, they just bundle together source code and release that. Also android licensers often want to modify the user interface and add their own base GUI apps. Google can not offer patent protection for a user interface that it has no control over. On the other hand they could offer patent protection for an unmodified android install, it would even be a good way to encourage the manufacturers not to divert from the mainline

Re:Trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

Why GOOG didn't offer something similar to its licensees is beyond me.

Google themselves license patents from Microsoft for the phones with the Google brand name.

Re:Trolls

[jc42]

Too bad so many think Microsoft is doing this to make money from the licensing.

I get the impression that most people wouldn't call this "licensing". The usual term is "protection racket". Microsoft basically says "We won't tell you anything about our patent claims; we're just saying that if you pay us what we're asking, we won't sue you." This is not in any sense a licensing deal. It's classical protection money against an unspecified attack.

Re:Trolls

[Rob Y.]

They're not doing this to make money from the licensing. They're doing it to make sure that Microsoft alternatives always cost at least as much as 'genuine Microsoft' software. They are doing this so they don't have to compete on cost - it is anticompetitive to the core. The money they make from the licenses is a mostly irrelevant side-benefit.

Re:Trolls

[CharlyFoxtrot]

They come to some arrangement, which looks like it's really a fake agreement (e.g. you pay us $45 million, and we pay you $45 million back in marketing and discounts - which is what the Samsung deal is rumoured to be)

That's not a fake agreement. Sounds like they are using their patents to increase those companies dependance on Microsoft by making sure they buy Microsoft products with their "discount." From Microsofts standpoint that's a bigger win than collecting a cheque because they sure don't need the money.

Re:Trolls

[Locutus]

I already knew that about Microsoft making more from these patent licenses than they make from WinCE but for the longest time, years, they paid vendors to use WinCE and lost over $15 billion on it as of a few years ago. So it's no surprise they make more from these licenses and now their WinCE business is drying up big time.

Also, this income is a drop in the bucket to what they make off Windows and Windows based software. Since there's over 20 years of history of Microsoft spending billions to block competitors there's nothing new going on at Microsoft to show thi is about a revenue stream other than that based on Windows.

Patents are not secret, they are public. Which patents they claim are infringing is what they will not state. This is very much like how SCO operated their patent attacks.

LoB

Re:Trolls

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

All done under NDA so the details of the fraud are not revealed and investors are kept in the dark.

Given that there's quite a few companies who've had to sign up to the MS "licencing agreement", someone somewhere could accidentally leak the patents in question without it being obvious where they came from.

But I guess once someone is signed up, there's no incentive to help anyone else! :(

Same ol' Microsoft...

[Anonymous Coward]

Its probable that Microsoft will "buy" itself out of this mess in the US.
Now if B&N had sued MS in the EU oh boy oh boy. Maybe the EU should fine Microsoft oh lets see 10 billion $ ?
Microsoft, the same old Microsoft. You can't compete so you destroy the competition.
The leopard cannot change its spots. We need to hit, and hit hard the leopard again.

Re:Same ol' Microsoft...

[cavreader]

You certainly can't find a bigger shakedown artist then the EU business regulation committees. An unelected body who are virtually immune to any graft and bribery investigations.

Paywalled

[Neil Boekend]

Article is paywalled. Base price (for 1 year) is E94.38. Although they do have a entry in their form for "Delivery instructions". Can I please have the weekly digital digest delivered on a 3TB harddisk?

Let's see how schizophrenic the government is

[Rogerborg]

Because it looks like B&N is essentially arguing that it's fine to have a huge pile of software patents, but it's foul play if you actually use them.

The government (in its various guises) can't reasonably award software patents and then punish the owners for using them for exactly the purpose that they are intended, right?

Re:Let's see how schizophrenic the government is

[MrHanky]

Depends. Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, and if the patents in this case are needed to stay interoperable with the Windows environment, and the fees demanded border to extortion (i.e. the product is no longer competitive with Microsoft's product), then I suspect the DOJ might find that interesting.

Re:Let's see how schizophrenic the government is

[SuricouRaven]

And in ten years, once Microsoft has destroyed Android and taken over it's place in the market for billions in revenue, the case might finally finish winding through the courts. We've been here with Netscape. Legal action runs at a snail's pace compared to most industries - but in the fast-moving world of technology, it's glacial.

Re:Let's see how schizophrenic the government is

[Locutus]

bull shit, B&N is mainly complaining that the licensing fees are excessive. Microsoft wants something like $15 per device and that is as much or more than they charge for licensing their complete Windows Mobile OS. vFAT or what ever Microsoft is claiming is such a small part of the whole system the fees are excessive in any patent system.

These excessive fees and how Microsoft is forcing vendors to sign an NDA just to see the patents are outside of the patent system. To top it off, it appears at least the vFAT patent is related to ties with interoperability with their monopoly in the Windows desktop OS.

LoB

Please hit apple as well

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope they include Apple in this probing as well. If you ask me Apple abuses the patent system in much worse ways that MS does. Apple loves software patents, aesthetic "patents", obvious ideas and not original ideas patents, i.e. all the thing that shouldn't be protected by patents. And they don't want you to pay for their licences, they want you to stop selling your product and get out of their turf.

Re:Please hit apple as well

[hedwards]

I think the difference is that Apple hasn't yet tried to shake B&N down. I think until or unless that happens that B&N isn't going to be too concerned about that. They are a huge corporation, but they do have to focus somewhat on litigation incoming rather than filing lots of extraneous law suits.

Unless, I missed Apple trying to shake B&N down for pocket change in which case never mind.

From another article

[flimflammer]

A trial on Microsoft’s patent claims against Barnes & Noble is scheduled for February in Washington.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-08/barnes-noble-urges-u-s-regulators-to-probe-microsoft-on-mobile-patents.html

At least we'll finally see what patents Microsoft has been using to strong arm manufacturers of Android based phones into patent licensing. The must-sign-a-nda-or-we-wont-tell-what-you're-infringing-on tactic they've been using on everyone feels really underhanded to me, and I'm no Microsoft hater.

I figure there actually has to be something substantial in those patents to merit virtually all the big names in Android phones agreeing to license them at the amount MIcrosoft has been asking.

Re:From another article

[westlake]

At least we'll finally see what patents Microsoft has been using to strong arm manufacturers of Android based phones into patent licensing.

Tell me how you strong arm a company the size of Samsung or General Dynamics.

Re:From another article

[Anonymous Coward]

>I figure there actually has to be something substantial in those patents to merit virtually all the big names in Android phones agreeing to license them at the amount MIcrosoft has been asking.

No. Usually Microsoft gives them back the same money they paid (for now).
It's a ploy to make it look AS IF there is something substantial in those patents.

Re:From another article

[Locutus]

did you hear that Microsoft was possibly inflating the licensing fee while also signing a marketing deal with the vendors which bring the total cost of "the deal" to zero dollars. It was said that the Samsung deal was such a deal. B&N does not sell or ship any Microsoft Windows based products so there is no place for any leverage there.

I also expect that schedule to get delayed and delayed many times.

LoB

Re:From another article

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung makes Windows laptops. One of General Dynamics' four main business groups provides defense-oriented, IT consulting, systems integration, network management, etc.

In other words, both companies you mentions are significant Microsoft users, customers and resellers. The details of the remaining strong-arming are an exercise for the reader.

Re:From another article

[Gadget_Guy]

At least we'll finally see what patents Microsoft has been using to strong arm manufacturers of Android based phones into patent licensing.

We have already seen some of the patents with the Microsoft vs Motorola lawsuit. It is not a patent list of which I would be particularly proud.

Re:From another article

[Locutus]

Did you know they both sell products which run Microsoft Windows? Do you think they might talk about how those licensing fees would go up sharply if they were not to play this Android game. Seeing how they _require_ an NDA before even telling the vendors what patents are being infringed, these kinds of contracts only get exposed in court documents or leaked.

So that is just a couple of ways Microsoft strong arms companies the size of Samsung or General Dynamics. And don't forget, Microsoft strong armed Intel into shutting down a software division they were running which did Java and multimedia software. It's pretty well known by the older geeks how Microsoft got its market and has kept its market and it was not because they competed on product quality. IMO

LoB

Re:From another article

[Xest]

"I figure there actually has to be something substantial in those patents to merit virtually all the big names in Android phones agreeing to license them at the amount MIcrosoft has been asking."

Agreed, IMO the issue at hand isn't whether Microsoft has valid patents, I think it very likely does else firms would be less likely to sign agreements with it, I think the issue is that Microsoft is abusing NDAs and so forth to prevent anyone telling the world what the patents are so that they can re-write software to not infringe on Microsoft's payments.

Effectively Microsoft is doing it's best to encourage continued infringement so that people have to license. IMO that should be grounds to lose rights to a patent - you should either be open about infringement and give people the opportunity to avoid it or license it, or lose the right to the patent altogether, not trap people into infringing and then force them to pay up. That really is protection racket type tactics.

Re:From another article

[JasterBobaMereel]

By making it not worth their while to not comply

Small birds harass much larger ones, they have no hope of stopping them, but they do make it not worth going after their vulnerable young....

Re:From another article

[Rockoon]

At least we'll finally see what patents Microsoft has been using to strong arm manufacturers of Android based phones into patent licensing.

Here are the 9 patents that Motorola is defending itself from against Microsoft

I mean jesus fucking christ its been a whole fucking year now.. WE KNOW WHAT THE PATENTS ARE ALREADY.

if you are this uninformed, maybe just maybe you shouldnt fucking be discussing things? For christ sakes.

Re:From another article

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just hiding the patents, it's also about Microsoft abusing the system to make the patents basically 'essential' for interoperability (in my non-lawyer opinion): As an example VFAT is not exceptional in any way, and no-one really wants to use it -- it's just that Microsoft refuses to support any filesystems that would make more sense on removable flash storage. I wonder why?

Re:From another article

[flimflammer]

Oh my, looks like someone is having a bad day. It's okay kiddo, things will get better.

What if the player is fraudulant?

[Anonymous Coward]

MS don't have a true patent claim, even under the rigged game. If they did, they'd go after Google instead of this back door NDA thing.

It's perfectly OK to hate the player if the player is creating a fraudulent market.

Innovation from the US of A

[Anonymous Coward]

I get the feeling that the patent business is growing faster than the industries patents are supposed to protect..

Soon we'll have Bill O'Reilly telling us which patents are good and which are not.. lol... everything that was progress and innovation reduced to a guy in a box and between commercials...

and you will make fire with sticks again..

The problem is...

[WindBourne]

the android companies that have caved into MS and paid them. Hopefully B&N and Google/Motorola will win out over MS, while those companies that signed with MS will be forced to continue paying.

Re:The problem is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Furthermore, we still don't know what MS patents are being used, because the companies are signing NDAs.

One is FAT related, but the rest?

Re:The problem is...

[smpoole7]

> the android companies that have caved ...

Sad, but for most corporations, that's just considered part of the cost of doing business. They're not going to fight if they feel that it's cheaper just to cave in.

If hiring attorneys and spending months (or even years) in court doesn't present some obvious benefit for them, or if they think it won't provide a clear strategic advantage, they'll probably choose the path of least resistance -- and cost. Especially in a weak economy.

Re:The problem is...

[Locutus]

some of those deals are likely to cost the vendors nothing since they included a side deal worth moneys similar to the patent license just for putting a Windows sticker on a box or logo on a web page. They're called Microsoft Marketing Programs and they allow Microsoft to charge an inflated licensing fee while still costing the vendor little, nothing or even to make a profit.

It will be interesting to hear what happens to those vendor licensing deals if this runs its course. We won't hear too much though because of the NDAs required by Microsoft and if this digs into these contracts in court then I suspect Microsoft will negotiate a much smaller fee for B&N and end it before they get exposed for the racket they are playing. Google/Motorola is another story.

LoB

Re:The problem is...

[hedwards]

From the non-paywall version of the article. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-08/barnes-noble-urges-u-s-regulators-to-probe-microsoft-on-mobile-patents.html

Without providing figures, Barnes & Noble said Microsoft was demanding the same amount in patent fees that it would charge users of its Windows Phone operating system.

I can't blame them for crying foul, the patents themselves are a minor portion of MS' total IP related to Windows Mobile and yet they're expecting to charge B&N the same price as if they were licensing Windows Mobile. That's not a matter of being unable to afford the patents, that's a matter of not being able to afford to license an OS that they're not going to use.

This isn't fundamentally any different than MS making it really hard to buy laptops without their OS.

The REAL issue here is

[andydread]

Microsoft is taking ownership of other people's code through the abuse of software-patents. This is scary. The notion that you cannot sit down in front of your computer and write successful code without Microsoft attacking you with a team of lawyers using dubious and obvious software-patents is scary. All you code are belong to Microsoft. They didn't write it but the own it anyway. This egregious behavior is something that Microsoft actually promised in their Halloween document. This is not just against Android. Its campaign to sink open source particularly Linux in the marketplace. By making it an expnesive hassle to deploy Linux vendors will just use windows instead. Its not noble. Its sleazy. MIcrosoft's Steve Balmer has been treating to use sleazy tactics and they are doing it now.

Here is how it works :
Microsoft Approaches open source company
Microsoft: My what a nice open source company you have here
Microsoft: You know this is a dangerous neighborhood you need some protection.
Business Owner: Protection? From who?
Microsoft: Well...From us really.
Microsoft: Oh and sign this NDA you cannot talk about this to anyone. Got it?

Its egregious sleazy software-patent extortion tactics.

The real question is how does the greater open source community stop them. So far only Shuttleworth has pledged to fight them in court if they come knocking on Ubuntu's doorstep

If you think this is about Android then you are sadly mistaken. This is about LInux and open source victims include:- TomTom, Buffalo, IO-DATA, Kyocera MIta etc. None of those produce Android products. They are now beating drums that Open Office and Libre Office violates their patents. Look for them to start suing anyone that distributes Open Office or Libre Office in a successful product.

This is their strategy against open source in general If you write open source software that competes with Micorosoft expect them to make it very expensive for you in the marketplace if your product becomes successful.

Lack of Cash

[whisper_jeff]

Just because "B&N does not have the cash reserves to support similar licensing" doesn't mean the patents are frivolous. Given that most Android manufacturers have signed licensing agreements with MS, it suggests that the patents are decidedly _NOT_ frivolous. If they were or even if the average person thought they were, several other manufacturers would have pushed back and defended themselves in court.

Re:Lack of Cash

[dell623]

You don't understand the patent system. Even if the patent is frivolous, it takes expensive litigation to invalidate one patent, forget the thousands Microsoft has registered for Pg Up/ Pg Down to double click.

The patents are frivolous, software patents, with a lot of prior art and can be said to apply to absolutely any computing device these days:

http://www.geekwire.com/2011/microsoft-cites-new-patents-vs-android

The major phone and tablet makers who signed deals with Microsoft are Samsung, HTC who are also coincidentally the only major Windows Phone manufacturers.

Also Microsoft has been in less of a hurry to go after companies with major Windows PC manufacturers like Asus, Acer, Sony etc.

Microsoft is clearly using these patents to stifle Android, and this raises serious anti trust concerns. Many of these patents would not stand up well to a challenge, and many like the FAT patent and the filename system are patents companies are forced to use to maintain compatibility with existing standards.

Also, Microsoft charges more to license these patents than it does to license its Windows Phone operating system:

"The book retailer claims also that the fees Microsoft was demanding were equal to or greater than those it demanded for an entire operating system, Windows Phone, even though the patents covered only "trivial and non-essential design elements" of the Android user interface".

Re:Lack of Cash

[gl4ss]

they can't name the patents in court after hearing what the patents are. nifty, eh?

Re:Lack of Cash

[Anonymous Coward]

The article is kind of bullshit, it makes it seem like B&N is just crying because Microsoft wants to be paid for their patents. That's not what's happening here. Having read through the documents B&N released on Groklaw, it's far more than that.

Microsoft approached them to license patents to cover Android, well refusing to disclose what patents without B&N first signing a NDA.
B&N's lawyers told Microsoft they weren't signing a NDA if they're discussing public information like patents.
Microsoft came back later to try getting them to sign a license well referencing a NDA B&N has with them about something completely unrelated.
B&N refused and told them not to try that again.
Microsoft finally agreed to talk to them about the patents without an NDA, B&N's lawyers looked at them and explained to Microsoft they don't cover their devices, as the patents covered features the devices didn't have.
Microsoft came back and explained those were just a few of the patents they had, that they could go back and find patents B&N did infringe on if they didn't sign a license agreement.
B&N is now taking Microsoft to court, fighting against their patent extortion, and trying to get the DoJ to open a new anti-trust case against Microsoft for their extortion tactics, and blatent abuse of the patent system to harm anyone trying to compete.

Re:Lack of Cash

[alexhs]

Microsoft finally agreed to talk to them about the patents without an NDA, B&N's lawyers looked at them and explained to Microsoft they don't cover their devices, as the patents covered features the devices didn't have.
Microsoft came back and explained those were just a few of the patents they had, that they could go back and find patents B&N did infringe on if they didn't sign a license agreement.

Yes, same tactics as IBM used in the 80's :

My own introduction to the realities of the patent system came in the 1980s, when my client, Sun Microsystems--then a small company--was accused by IBM of patent infringement. Threatening a massive lawsuit, IBM demanded a meeting to present its claims. Fourteen IBM lawyers and their assistants, all clad in the requisite dark blue suits, crowded into the largest conference room Sun had.

The chief blue suit orchestrated the presentation of the seven patents IBM claimed were infringed [...]

After IBM's presentation, our turn came. As the Big Blue crew looked on (without a flicker of emotion), my colleagues--all of whom had both engineering and law degrees--took to the whiteboard with markers, methodically illustrating, dissecting, and demolishing IBM's claims. [...] Confidently, we proclaimed our conclusion: Only one of the seven IBM patents would be deemed valid by a court, and no rational court would find that Sun's technology infringed even that one.

An awkward silence ensued. The blue suits did not even confer among themselves. They just sat there, stonelike. Finally, the chief suit responded. "OK," he said, "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?"

After a modest bit of negotiation, Sun cut IBM a check, and the blue suits went to the next company on their hit list.

In corporate America, this type of shakedown is repeated weekly. The patent as stimulant to invention has long since given way to the patent as blunt instrument for establishing an innovation stranglehold. [...]

Re:Lack of Cash

[prefect42]

Without knowing the details of the agreements (and that's all behind NDAs) there's no way of reasonably coming to those conclusions. For all you know Microsoft are effectively paying companies to license the patents to give it credibility... All you can infer is that it the other companies thought it was in their interest to sign the deal, but you know nothing about what the deal was, or if they were right.

Re:Lack of Cash

[hey!]

Given that most Android manufacturers have signed licensing agreements with MS, it suggests that the patents are decidedly _NOT_ frivolous.

"Millions for defense, not one penny for tribute," is not how businesses run. Businesses run to maximize profit. Therefore the principle they operate on is "pay up to $999,999.99 in tribute rather than $1,000,000 in defense." If businesses always act to maximize profits, then the validity of the claim is neither here nor there. It's only a contributing factor to the cost of pursuing a claim or defending against it.

Also, if you run out of cash in business, you're bankrupt. Cash flow is the first consideration in deciding to litigate or settle a case. If one party has the cash on hand to pursue litigation and the other doesn't, that party can force a settlement on the other without regard to the merits of the case. A pot of gold at the end of a lawsuit does you no good if you don't have the cash to make it all the way to the end.

So in a nutshell, we have a system that only works if both litigants have enough cash on hand to see them through to the end of a protracted legal battle and no better use for that cash in the interim. Only in that situation can the party with the best case always force a settlement on the party with the weakest case.

The only possible way to fix this is to ensure that bad claims are never made in the first place. To do that we must prevent the granting of weak or overly broad patents, and purge any such patents currently granted. But there's no political will to do this in a climate where the people want government spending curbed and politically connected companies are making money of bogus patents.

Re:Lack of Cash

[hedwards]

They're not disputing the legitimacy of the patents here they're disputing MS' right to charge as much to license those 5 patents as the entire Windows Mobile OS. It's in the non-paywall version of the article.

Re:Lack of Cash

[xigxag]

I know nothing about patent law, but it seems to me in the first instance that this is less about Evil Micro$haft, per se, as it is about the inherent problems in the patent system. Any large scale producer can and will do the same thing, using patents as a way to maintain the cross-licensing cartel that exists among the big guys, making the barrier of entry prohibitively expensive to anyone else.

Secondly, there ought to be (or maybe there is?) a method by which one can get a declaratory judgment against a particular patent holder, which would work as follows: You present your product to them, show them the feature set. You allow them to examine it for a period of 60 or 90 days or whatever. Then they have to tell you ALL of their patents which they hold that you are violating, including patents pending. If they do not present their patents at that time, you can receive a court order stating that you are not liable to them. Any patent they fail to present can't be brought up later in a fishing expedition, unless it turns out that you concealed a feature set of your product. A future revision of your product remains generally protected and would only be at risk to the extent that it effects a material change in its operation that would newly infringe upon the previously declared patents, or upon patents issued subsequent to the judgment but that predate the revision.

Perhaps this is unworkable in practice, shifting too much work from the manufacturer to the patent holder. (E.g., imagine you're a private inventor and you patent a truly unique and novel software method. And Samsung gets a "declaratory judgment" by burying you in 10 million lines of source code so that you can't even tell if your patent is in there or not, effectively hiding their violation in plain sight. The 90 days pass and bewildered, you fail to present any counterclaim. They wind up stealing your invention and not paying you a dime.) Still there ought to be a middle ground that better minds than mine can devise. Eliminating software patents, sure maybe, but this is an issue that could arise in a hardware context as well.

Re:Lack of Cash

[WorBlux]

", it suggests that the patents are decidedly _NOT_ frivolous" No it means that interval of damages plus costs over the probability curve for this and potential further issues in the future is greater than the cost of settling. Say there is a !% chance of a reward of $100 dollars per device and a 2.5% chance of $50 per device, either which outweighs the licencing cost.

Sunlight

[ThatsNotPudding]

If they have a valid claim, Microsoft should not be allowed to hide it under a blackmail-as-nda bushel basket. If they do have something valid, I suspect it is very trivial to work around and they know it. Hence their wisper campaign against Linux / Android whilst steadfastly refusing to show actual proof.

And when did Brinksmanship become an acceptable / legal business practice? Perhaps it was part of the Supreme Court horseshit decision about Corporate Personhood...

And it's not a patent on vFAT

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a patent on how to mangle long names do the old DOS 8.3 format. Which isn't the same method used in Linux and Android uses the same method as Linux does.

Unless this patent is on the idea of mangling long file names to an 8.3 format, in which case, the patent is invalid because it isn't specific.

Past Tense?

[SadButTrue]

The title and summary both suggest this is over. I was under the impression that the request to the DoJ had just begun. That is it should read, "is seeking" not "sought"?

The rhetoric was all about BRITISH petroleum.

[Anonymous Coward]

So, yes, the concensus was that BP is a foreign company. Therefore, no votes lost in dumping them, votes available for ragging on them. 'course for many US Senators, there was money in not letting them be punished, just told they were a very naughty boy.

Pyrrhic Victory

[sgt scrub]

I worked for a company that used all its resources to fight off McAfee patent law suites. By the time the battle was won, the attorney's owned enough of the company all they needed was to convince one other investor to become a patent troll company. The only way out was to sell off all of the assets; intellectual property, customer base, hardware, etc. Essentially, the win was for a McAfee competitor and the attorneys. They purchased the intellectual property that was "verified to be a patent McAfee infringed upon" via the money the investors had put into the business. It sounds like Huawei could become a pretty nasty patent troll.

Neither as bad as Rush Limbaugh

[Anonymous Coward]

and Fox news.

"So seriously, just stop. Xenophobia and over-the-top patriotism is indicative of a people wallowing in fear prodded by power hungry governments distracting their own citizens with an "us versus them" construct."

Yup, which is why it's worse in the USA than elsewhere. There's lots of money riding on getting elected (you can retire to a good job with businesses you "helped" while in office).

And thaf formatted area needs a vFAT license...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooops.

Re:And thaf formatted area needs a vFAT license...

[Pembers]

vFAT is what provides long filenames in FAT16. As long as you limit yourself to using 8.3 filenames on the disk, you wouldn't need a license - and since it's only Windows that needs this driver, the filenames can be chosen specifically to fit within that naming scheme.

Sudden Urge

[Anonymous Coward]

Suddenly I have the urge to buy a Nook and other stuff from B&M. After all, Christmas is just around the corner!

Re:Sudden Urge

[Anonymous Coward]

A round corner? So, Christmas infringes on Apple patents? :P

F/RAND applies to standards-essential patents

[imgunby]

MS and other companies are only obligated to license patents under F/RAND terms if those patents are incorporated into various standards. For nearly every other patent, the cost to license (if the holder decides to do so) it is completely up to the holder, and can indeed by arbitrary and exorbitant. Could be worse... they could simply refuse to license the patents at all.

Re:F/RAND applies to standards-essential patents

[andydread]

That is incorrect. They were forced to license many MS only protocols in the EU under F/RAND terms. Many are not part of any official standard.

Re:F/RAND applies to standards-essential patents

[imgunby]

Right you are... I'd completely forgotten about their being required to open up about some of their server apps. That said, I don't know if that and this are really and oranges-to-oranges comparison. It's not like the Nook is suffering in the market because it can't connect to SharePoint or some other horrific MS app.

Google didn't yet own or sell Android...

[Anonymous Coward]

As I understand it, it's much more difficult for Microsoft to sue Google for infringement because Google doesn't sell Android. Google doesn't even own Android. Android is a Linux based Java centric open source project of which Google is the major contributor. You can download the source code and compile the core Android OS yourself ( but as noted next.. not all the extra bits).

Google makes some Google specific applications for Android ( as well as their official appstore ) over which it keeps control and leverages for greater control of the Android ecosystem. This is why some handset manufacturers don't offer access to the Google Android Appstore - they don't license the Google controlled apps or meet other basic requirements and therefore don't qualify to access the Google Appstore.

  Google's purchase of Motorola will of course change the dynamics of this situation.

Am I wrong?