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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."
It's about damn time the patents came out.
#DeleteChrome
Time to fire up the old Nook Color and make a purchase.
I might go out and buy another Nook to reward these guys for what they're doing.
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
First, B&N chooses an open format, ePub, for the Nook.
Second, they make the Nook easily rootable.
Third, they tell Microsoft to go fuck themselves.
I'm feeling better and better about choosing Nook over Kindle every day.
Thomas Galvin
This is the only way Microsoft can make any money on OPEN SOURCE. and of course the best kind of money made is from someone else.
But I suddenly feel scared for Barnes and Noble. They are a relatively small company daring to take a stance against a mammoth. I really, really hope they don't get crushed. :(
It's like my new super hero is kicking arse and taking names and has a big B&N crest in his chest.
Well played, Barnes and Noble!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
.
Those who can compete, do; those who can't, litigate.
What is the difference between a man and a parasite? A man builds. A parasite asks "Where is my share?"
The N900 was nice though.
Nokia used to be better. They were fostering Qt, after all, and Qt is awesome.
This is just...absurdly evil. 90s Microsoft, cartoonish evil. How did they possibly think this was a good idea?
Perhaps the chair struck back and in his delirium Ballmer thought it was a sane strategy.
Have to say, it smacks of the sort of desperation Microsoft (under Bill Gates) sought to destroy Java.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
1. Loading icon in the content window of a browser
2. Compatibility of file names with current and outmoded operating systems
3. Storing input/output in a shared file system
4. Simulating mouse inputs on a device without a mouse
5. A browser that recognizes background images and displays them after the text is loaded
6. Using handles to change the size of selected text
6,339,780
5,579,517
5,652,913
5,758,352
6,791,536
6,897,853
6,339,780
5,778,372
5,889,522
6,891,551
6,957,233
Saved you the trouble of RTFA.
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
I thought MS are supposed to be Staunch Champions of the Freedom to Innovate, hardy har har.
Ridiculous - leveraging a few patents on minor functionality which might cover .00001 percent of Android functionality into a patent royalty which is out of all proportion to the "size" of MS's "contribution" to the product AND putting onerous development requirements on Android developers to hamstring it's future progress so that they're own platform can prevail not on its merits, but on their ability to control the competition with patents.
This is *everything* that's wrong with the software patent system.
recognize that they are valid patents that are being infringed on.
Yeah, and those 99 percenters also realize that there are reams of prior art and these patents are pure junk. I'd "infringe" a patent too if it was pure crap that had no right being granted in the first place. These "innovations" are not the property of MS. They were ideas thought of long before MS decided to rape the system by getting them attached to a piece of paper.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
Although you provide a compelling argument. There are a couple of facts that you overlook here:
1) Microsoft wouldn't disclose which patents were the problem to the vendors, nor Google. As stated in the articles here, B&N had to break an NDA to show the world what Microsoft was leveraging for the lawsuits. That's piss poor behavior in my opinion, and a sign of operating in "bad faith."
2) The licensing fees are comparable to the entire cost of a Windows Mobile OS license. This is not a "reasonable" fee which is what patent law calls for.
3) The licensing agreement includes provisions that prevent the licensee from making changes to the product, and reach far beyond the scope of the patents that are owned by the patent holder. Specifically, by allowing Microsoft (in PJ's terms) veto power, Microsoft is attempting to assert full control over a product that they are trying to compete against. That is highly anti-competitive.
And of freaking course Google is releasing the OS for free. It's called OPEN SOURCE. The OS is freely available. Honestly, I can't blame Google for trying to procure patents... It's a defensive measure against cabals like this. The whole point of the lawsuits against Android makers is to use the courts to gain market share. This does great harm to the consumer by stifling competition and innovation (see Internet Explorer 6... That was a hideous mess and web technologies were stagnant until the Mozilla foundation released Firefox). That's why these licenses are problem, and that's why I don't agree with your statement that Google is the problem.
I'm only half kidding here. Patent lawyers have replaced Personal Injury lawyers as the scum of the earth. The entire patent system needs to be re-vamped, legislation passed outlawing patent squatting and technology stifling. And a firing squad for the patent lawyers.
Google licenses Android for free, because they get paid in different ways and have a strategy that stretches beyond next quarter. They don't have any kind of monopoly in any of their businesses, so the comparison with MSFT of the 90's isn't a great comparison.
It's a little like Mozilla giving Firefox away for free because they get paid in different ways. Should they be stopped because others who want to charge money for the browser can't figure out a way to compete?
Software and process patents are just a way to funnel money from innovators to lawyers.
I also submit that if Google had procured the patents in question, not only would we know what they were, they would probably not be using said patents in an offensive to gain market share.
Ah, yes, the surely-objective opinions of "WinSuperSite"...which find that Google is stifling competition by providing an open-sourced smartphone kernel to anyone who asks, and is oppressing the poor, abused coalition of every other smartphone vendor who banded together specifically to pay an exorbitant price for smartphone-related patents and immediately as a group set about suing over Android devices (exclusively). Curiously, they did this when Android's marketshare started to make theirs look rather foolish. Yes, they just want to protect their intellectual property, such as the milestone achievement "No. 6,339,780 placing a loading status icon in the content area of a browser." By precisely duplicating the functionality of "placing a loading status icon in the content area of a browser", Google is oppressing competition, necessitating the actions of Microsoft in demanding license fees in excess of their own product's cost for infringements that they refuse to disclose before being paid.
TL;DR: give me a break.
Patents were intended as the alternative to a trade secret. The way it was supposed to work is that rather than keep everything secret (like the old medieval guild system did) you documented how you built something and in return you got the rights to that device for a limited amount of time. Thus others could see how you did it and either license it from you for a fee or else figure out an alternative way of doing it, and after the time had expired then the information was publicly available.
As for the claim of "bogus" or "largely questionable" patents, are you seriously arguing that "placing a loading status icon in the content viewing area of a browser" (ie, put the status icon where it's actually visible when zoomed in) isn't obvious? Or loading the text first and then the images? Or using handles to change the size of selected text area (how else are you going to do it when you can't click and drag?).
I would very much like an individual to cite a piece of prior art and write of cogent argument why the claims of the issued patents are invalid. It is all too easy to fall prey to hindsight bias when dealing with patents that were filed over a decade ago.
So exploiting a poorly thought-out system for the benefit of the few is A-OK, duly noted. Don't be disingenuous, EVERYONE is behaving badly here because the system is set up not only to allow it, but to promote it.
Capitalism: "That don't befront me, as long as I get my money next Friday."
Fanboys...just shut the fuck up. Your chosen side isn't any better than the other.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
B&N REFUSED to sign any Microsoft Gagging Agreement apart from one very limited document. That is clearly documented in the filings made by B&N.
B&N are also irate about the terms MS wanted to impose on them for seemingly ancient and trivial violations.
So MS got a patent on using the kb to simulate a mouse/trackpad. There is so much prior art that will shoot that down that i want to get up an applaud B&N for exposing the MS RICO scam. I can't support them by buying a Nook as they don't ship it to my country.
I'd also like to be at a few shareholder meetings of the companies that have signed up for the MS Scam. I'd expect their BOD to get a really hard time explaining why they let MS literally screw the comany and shareholders.
OTOH there is another type of patent troll. A patent troll who is rather incompetent at creating or marketing a specific device or process but still wants to profit off the production of the device. This is MS. MS has had years to bring smartphones to market. They have not done so. They have had years to work within the market to produce a product people want. They have not. So now they are pushing trivial patents to profit off other peoples works. This is not what patents are for.
If MS were to sue someone because they were copying key points from Xbox, there would be no issue. But people are not. Firms are using industry standard methods to develop a mobile device. Using filename, icons, and redenering techniques that MS did not develop, but merely copied from others and was the fist to patent.All they want is a share of a market that they do not have the skill to get. As a result the consumer is being asked to pay more than would otherwise be necessary. Does this sound familiar. It should because it is how MS operates. By getting a cut from ever sale even if MS has no input into that sale. Can any say naked PC?
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
ANDREW RYAN
swap first and last 3 letters
YANREW RAND
scramble first letters
WE R AYN RAND
Ein Volk. Ein Reich. Ayn Rand.
Patents can be obtained when someone invents a novel process or machine that had not been done before... that is what I would have said if you asked me about patents about 30 years ago. Today, patents are obtained by lawyers for the benefit of lawyers. Overwhelming majority of technology patents today are bogus litigation fuel. We all know 100% of all software patents are entirely bogus, yet they are wasting time and money that could go to R&D, instead it's going to the lawyers' pockets.
Computers and their software came this far riding on the skirts of innovation fueled by sharing, competing and communicating. This energy is being tapped today by lawyers who have nothing better to do than to sink their fangs into the arteries of innovation and suck the energy that had been fueling innovation since the 1960's.
According Barnes and Noble this about open source software in general not just Android. They mention Tomtom and other non-Android device manufacturers. Microsoft is on a campaign to kill open source in the marketplace. More info available here and a damning PDF with lots of juicy information here
B&N didn't break an NDA. They signed an NDA covering a single meeting, where the specifics on the patents weren't given. Microsoft then apparently forgot they hadn't signed the same NDA as everyone else and sent them information on the patents.
People have known for decades that it's sometime useful to give users feedback about something that takes a long time, by displaying a progress meter or at least "Please wait" or "loading" or "initializing the galaxy." When GUIs got popular, displaying it as an icon was natural. When small screens started to get more popular, it became somewhat common to eschew fixed-position widgets in favor of using the entire screen as a "content area" because there was so little to spare for scrollbars, status displays, or whatever.
Yet despite this situation, no one could figure out how to display a loading status icon in a content area. Or at least no one easily could. But then Microsoft Research applied themselves to the problem, and with a lot of insight, experiments, trial and error, hard work, and just plain luck, they figured out how to do it. I've never seen a Microsoft handheld computer, but presumably they used the novel solution in a product. But nobody wanted it, so it died. And Microsoft, too, may some day die.
The secret for how to display a status icon in a content area, could become lost when Microsoft dies. But no. Not willing to let their efforts be buried by the sands of time as a lost trade secret, they took advantage of patent law, which gave them a brief monopoly (a mere 20 years within the millennia that people have been doing mathematics) for which We The Public received public disclosure for how their invention works.
And what did Google and Barnes & Noble do? They renegged on the disclosure-for-monopoly deal!! Instead of having to figure out on their own, how to display a status icon in a content area, they dishonorably read through all of Microsoft patents, learned all the secrets ("aha! That's how to display a status icon, where the icon is in the content area! Ingenious!") and defied the monopoly.
And here you all are, blaming the victim, Microsoft. Yet without Microsoft, would you know how to display an icon inside a content area instead of outside it? Or would you be pounding your keyboards in frustration? "It doesn't compile!" or "It doesn't run right! There's my icon, but it's outside of the content area! How did they do it!" or "There's my icon inside the content area, but WTF, it doesn't say 'Loading'! How is the user supposed to know it's loading something, if I can't figure out how to make the icon say 'Loading'?!" Please, people, think of the inventors and their technical solutions. Without the monopoly, they might not have had any incentive at all, to solve the long-standing mystery.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
That might explain why phone manufactures like Samsung and HTC (who make both Android and Windows phones) are willing to take the deal but B&N is not.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Barnes and Noble did the world a favor and maybe we can all return the favor.
Amazon accepted to pay Microsoft while Barnes and Noble is fighting them over their absurd patents.
At the moment many are wondering whether to buy a Kindle Fire or a Nook Color or Nook Tablet.
I have a Nook Color and I love it.
The stock software is ok and color children books are nice, so I would happily recommend the product to non technical people.
The stock software can also do youtube videos etc.
For me, the killer feature was the micro SD card that is bootable. I put Cyanogenmod on it, got the Google market etc.
This lawsuit makes me want to recommend the Nook to more people. I used to feel the kindle fire was just the same (minus the micro SD so hacking is a bit less friendly).
But if Amazon is paying Microsoft, then buying a Kindle Fire is scoring against the Open Source camp.
Judicious coders are now looking for prior art, and they'll probably find it. But each patent fought will be a battle by itself, cost a lot of money, and more cross-complaints will be filed. This is only the beginning, not the beginning of the end.
This is the knock-down argument for why what Microsoft is doing is illegitimate. If it doesn't matter whether the patents are valid because they have a thousand other patents in their back pocket then you're not paying for a patent license, you're paying protection money against ruinous litigation. You either have to pay up or you have to play Russian roulette with a machine gun where every dud costs you a million bucks in legal fees.
That's the problem with mutually assured destruction. It only works when the entities are the same size. Otherwise it's a war of attrition, so the big guy only needs to force an equal dollar amount of each party's cash into a big pile (called "retainer fees") and then set it all on fire and wait for the little guy to either capitulate or go into bankruptcy. And compared to Microsoft, B&N is the little guy.
This seems like a really foolish thing for a convicted monopoly to do.
Microsoft started it's Android patent protection program in full, and their judicial oversight just ended Both events are April 2011... clearly coincidence and happenstance.
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