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Barnes & Noble Names Microsoft's Disputed Android Patents
Julie188 writes "B&N is really blowing the lid off of what Microsoft is doing and how they are forcing money from Android. It has accused Microsoft of requiring overly restricted NDA agreements from those even entering into patent license talks. Because it is disputing Microsoft's claims, and the restrictions of its own NDA signed with Redmond, B&N has gone public. It has named in detail six patents that it says Microsoft is using to get Android device makers to pay up. Plus, B&N is also trying to force open Microsoft's other plans for stomping out Android, including the agreement Redmond made with Nokia, and Nokia's patent-troll MOSAID."
On the one hand, the tech industry is awash in patent trolls, companies that own generally spurious patents for technologies they didn't really invent, which exist solely to sue other companies into licensing said technologies. On the other, we have tech companies that have patents for technologies that they did, in fact, invent (or at least purchase legitimately) and, as important, use in actual products. These companies, too, must sue others to protect their patents, but for far more legitimate reasons.
Google is upset about the latter kind of company, and it's citing two heavy-hitters, Apple and Microsoft, as example of companies that own patents and are using the legal system to prevent other companies from infringing on their protected technologies. More specifically, these companies are using their patents in a war against Google's Android OS, which is of course the dominant market leader. In poor Google's world, these companies are out for no good.
But what's the argument here, exactly?
According to a blog post that voices this complaint, and I'm using its exact wording here, "Android is on fire. More than 550,000 Android devices are activated every day, through a network of 39 manufacturers and 231 carriers."
Oh. Great. So there's no cause for alarm, right? I mean, Android is already running roughshod over the rest of the mobile world, including industry darling Apple's iPhone. Right?
Wrong.
"Android's success has yielded ... a hostile, organized campaign against Android by Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and other companies, waged through bogus patents," Google Senior Vice President and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond writes in the post.
Ah, bogus patents. I'm curious how that was determined. Let's read on. Surely, this will be explained. After all, it's an incredible charge to make publicly. There must be proof and some public explanation of why that word was used.
"They're doing this by banding together to acquire Novell's old patents and Nortel's old patents (the 'Rockstar' group including Microsoft and Apple), to make sure Google didn't get them; seeking $15 licensing fees for every Android device; attempting to make it more expensive for phone manufacturers to license Android (which we provide free of charge) than Windows Phone 7; and even suing Barnes & Noble, HTC, Motorola, and Samsung. Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it."
Actually, using patents in this way is a legitimate business endeavor with no proof of "bogusness." But I am curious, if Google had in fact won these patents for itself, would that have made them "non-bogus"?
I'm sure he'll explain the bogus comment. Let's keep reading.
"A smartphone might involve as many as 250,000 (largely questionable) patent claims, and our competitors want to impose a 'tax' for these dubious patents that makes Android devices more expensive for consumers. They want to make it harder for manufacturers to sell Android devices. Instead of competing by building new features or devices, they are fighting through litigation. This anti-competitive strategy is also escalating the cost of patents way beyond what they’re really worth."
Again, no explanation of the bogus claim is made, though he does repeat the charge ("largely questionable patent claims"), place the word tax in quotes, suggesting that these companies use this term themselves, and then add a more general "anti-competitive" charge. The thing is, this activity is the very notion of competitiveness. Patents are designed to protect intellectual property, which are a competitive advantage. In many ways, Apple, Microsoft, and whoever else owns these patents actually protecting them is what makes this activity competitive. Google can't just use protected technologies owned by other companies without paying for them. That is competition.
But wait, I'm sure he'll expla
Well, Google couldn't compete in the mobile marketplace either, so they decided to give a product away for free, funded by their monopoly search profits, just as Microsoft once did with Internet Explorer when it couldn't compete with Netscape. It wouldn't surprise me to get modbombed into oblivion for posting this on Slashdot (it happens), but it's the reality of the situation.
Google memos show that they were aware of Android's patent issues and chose to ignore them. I know Slashdot thinks all patents are evil (along with copyrights, commercial software, paying for music, etc.), but there are legitimate patents, and companies do deserve compensation for their research and development. I'm sure the many amateur patent lawyers that visit Slashdot will tear apart these patents with their expert analysis.
As opposed to a leveraging a monopoly position in web search to dominate the mobile phone market by giving away a free product that competitors can't afford to compete with on price? This situation seems familiar...