Slashdot Mirror
Apple Transfers Patents Through Shell Company To Sue All Phone Makers
New submitter dell623 writes "A patent lawsuit (PDF) by patent licensing firm Digitude Innovations curiously targeted all mobile manufacturers except Apple. A TechCrunch story has revealed that the patents used were transferred from Apple via a shell company to DI, and appear to cover features found in virtually all smartphones. The lawsuit even extends to companies that don't make Android phones, like Nokia and RIM, and to Android OEMs that Apple have not directly sued yet, like Sony. The business model of DI clearly implies that Apple would benefit financially from the lawsuit as a company that contributed patents to DI's portfolio."
If this is true why did they wait until now to do this?
this is a smart way to avoid negative publicity. 'apple sues xyz' makes apple sound like an evil company. 'digitude innovation sues xyz' is a way protecting the brand
fifteen jugglers, five believers
Do we have to argue Automatic Radio v. Hazeltine Research and Zenith v. Hazeltine Research all over again?
Truly this is American Innovation at work.
With business practices like these I can only wonder how long it will take for the us government to bring on charges of monopolistic practices and force a breakup of Apple's business portfolio. One can only hope.
The thing about NPEs is that you can't countersue them. If Apple were suing them, that could work, but it's not Apple suing.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
At some point this stops being about mere offensive lawsuits and goes into being plain evil.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
... or at least that's how I read it.
When they spend this kind of money and go through this sort of effort to essentially go Nuclear then it is quite clear that iOS/iPhone/iPad is on the way out -- or at least is so severely threatened and Apple has no clue as to what to do for a competitive recourse.
Seem to me that this money could have ben much better spent on R&D in increasing their product line and innovating -- but maybe the innovation at Apple died with the Steveness.
FWIW, "This American Life #441: When Patents Attack" lays out the problem with patents very clearly. Apple is just ONE company.
Are you so blind as to think that this is some brilliant plan by Apple to end the patent wars? If that's the case, then why didn't Apple sue everyone directly as they have done in the past? Why does Apple continue to litigate against anyone who even comes close to their designs? Why hasn't Apple simply used it's massive pile of cash to buy a few senators and congressmen and make them pass a law crippling the patent trolls? This is nothing more than a monopolistic power grab by Apple.
Fuck Beta
The decision to pay lawyers instead of engineers is never an easy one, but Apple, you made the calculations and made your decision and with it you've taken the crown from the former Symbol-of-all-that-is-wrong-in-America, Microsoft. Congratulations! I look forward to the future that you will allow to happen...
OMG. Yep, our god Steve could never do anything wrong. He must have been trying to do something altruistic. Yep, never mind the fact that Apple outright sued several other companies over phone patents already. This time they must have been doing something good. I'm not sure why he would try to do this good deed secretly so as not to draw positive attention to the company, while at the same time doing the not-so-good deeds very publicly and drawing negative attention, but I'm sure he has his reasons. All hail Steve.
Fucking apple. Why can't they just join Open Mobile Alliance like everyone else and share the patents. In return they would get access to the whole pool of patents from the other companies.
Bot Assisted Blogging
The patents necessary are available under FRAND, but Apple chose not to license them..
-]Phreak Out[-
Of course that bull since they only targeted their direct competitors. Money is NOT the only outcome of patent suits, blocking products is another outcome and is something Apple is directly aiming for.
The logical reason? Simple, GREED. ALOT of damage can be done before those patents are nullified, assuming they even will be. You make it sound as if lawsuits doesn't benefits the company suing when in fact it does immensely. Otherwise, patent trolls and massive lawsuits wouldn't be so common place.
As for shutting everyone down, they don't have too. They only need to delay products and damage the companies enough for Apple to run away with more profit. Block basic features from competitors, block/delay products, and weaken the companies; even a partial success is still a success to a company.
Not sure what your point is. This strategy of using a patent troll to harass competitors was planned and started under Jobs. Jobs must have signed off on the idea.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Apple just has so much cash that they are indifferent to paying hundreds of lawyers and suing everyone they can. Most of these companies have less cash on hand combined than Apple!
These temporary monopolies give Apple a huge head-start on their competitors: the typical consumer isn't going to buy multiple tablets or smartphones, and if they are then they'll be more inclined to purchase ones that they know will be interoperable. When the time comes to replace equipment, they'll be more likely to go with a brand that they're familiar with. Even if this sparks patent reform (which it almost certainly won't), Apple solidifies its grasp on lucrative markets.
It always goes in company name, here "DI" and whatever entities there are.
The missing link is people, it's all individuals having those great ideas.
Something like that: http://whoarethe1percent.com/ (kinda crude but useful).
This whole patent/copyright happening is so sick - who are the one-dimensional folks dreaming it up and going for it?
that;s one of them:
http://www.yatedo.com/p/Ed+Gomez/normal/faa10cb30a48fd79dc8ed3f41ff78228
With a picture, how cute!
Co. seems to be a major patent troll - hope they burn in hell!
http://www.burnsvillelocal.com/category/technology/
The outrage is right here - or are you missing the large number of comments calling out Apple for the crooked, non-innovating, patent-abusing company they have turned out to be?
I am reminded of the parable with the snake and the turtle - the turtle doesn't want to carry the snake across the river because he is afraid the snake will bite him, but the snake convinces him to do so anyway, with the comment "Why would I bite you in the middle of the river? I would drown!"
The turtle agrees to carry the snake across the river, and the snake bites him halfway across.
"Why would you do that?!?" the turtle cries as he sinks.
The snake replies, "I'm a snake, what did you expect?"
The big problem with massive corporations is that they are designed to acquire profit. When we expect them to act in a fashion that is anything other than self-serving and greedy, we are expecting the snake not to bite.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
If /. doesn't render right in your browser, it's your browser that is the problem. /. as far as I can tell seems to be valid HTML.
How many of the companies being sued HAVEN'T used patents as an offense rather than a defense? These days, legal departments are profit centres, and are more important than engineering departments; engineers' jobs are being outsourced and offshored while lawyers are rubbing their dirty little hands and laughing all the way to the bank.
I suspect most of the 'victims' of Apple's attempted sleight-of-hand are simply reaping what they've sown. The whole litigious nature of doing business today has gotten out of hand, but I can't say I feel terribly sorry for any of the players involved.
A society that believes lawsuits are the path to riches, and rewards people for spilling hot coffee on themselves or not watching where they're walking, can't help but devolve into this kind of crap. In the end it's a zero-sum game, and a tremendous drain on our resources. I'm surprised it's taking us so long to figure that out.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Apple via DI just picked a fight with pretty much every player in the mobile phone market?
This reeks of desperation. Something tells me the recent rulings against them around the world from Germany to the US to Australia are a major blow to their ego and they're lashing out like the cool kid who is suddenly being abandoned by all his friends...
It will be interesting to see if Apple can survive a fight with Microsoft (who are obligated to help due to agreements with Nokia and WP7), Google (Own Motorola), Sony, Samsung, RIM, LG, and Amazon...
I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
I had absolutely no idea that Darl McBride started work at Apple.
It didn't involve giving patents, but when Immersion sued Sony and MS over controller rumble, MS settled with Immersion, giving them money to fund their lawsuit against Sony on the condition that Immersion pay MS from the profits from that lawsuit and took part ownership. It was to remain confidential.
Later MS sued Immersion for not paying MS their money from the lawsuit. No honor among thieves I guess.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/27/microsoft_settles_with_immersion_again/
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
It's not an act of desperation. It's an act of Machismo, to match every other company (mainly Google, as a countermove to the Motorola purchase and subsequent attacks).
The whole thing is insanity really, there are no white hats here - Google, Apple, the whole lot of them suing each other in ridiculous ways over silly things with absurd demands.
I think there is a purpose for patents, I don't want to see them all go. But plainly something is utterly wrong with the system as it stands, where consumers all sit in the eye of the patent hurricane and hope it doesn't affect some fragment of our lives...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This should be illegal. Not just the transfer of patents solely for the purpose of litigating with them, but patents in this field - and maybe patents in general.
This post rambles a bit, but please bare with me as I explain that Intellectual Property is a large component of the destruction of modern society and civilization.
Originally, copyright was a big deal. I understand that. A couple hundred years ago, there weren't a large number of printing presses "in the field". Since then, technology has progressed to the point that not only can we print documents immediately upon desiring a hard copy of them, but there are entire publishing houses based on the idea of "print on demand" for books, periodicals, and other similar products. Humans have even developed a three-dimensional printer, allowing the production of any single plastic object that we can make a CAD document of. "Copying things" was not a personal concern when these laws were instituted, it was to prevent CompanyA from stealing CompanyB's work and printing a couple hundred copies, so that CompanyA would make money by stealing CompanyB's market. At that point in the technology curve, big companies were the only means of production for these products.
Let's think about the here and now, where nearly every home has a printing device. Where paper and ink are available to anyone who has access to a vehicle, and even to those who do not, if they live close enough to a Walmart, a Kmart, a drug store, a grocery store, or in some places even a convenience store. At this point in the technology curve, it becomes obvious that "protecting intellectual property" really means "creating an alternate revenue stream in the guise of monopoly".
It has been said over and over, but I'm going to repeat it one more time to be sure my point is clear:
Patenting software is like patenting a recipe, or an algebraic equation. You cannot patent the number 7, you shouldn't be able to patent "a method for obtaining the number 7 as output from a specific sequence of calculations". Recipes are protected under copyright law, because there is an artistic expression in listing ingredients and instructions for mixing them together... Wait, what?
So-called "design patents" are even worse - they attempt to make it illegal to do what any layman could do with no more tools than their eyes. "Rounded rectangle" should not be patentable, any more than "cube" should be patentable. Apple suing Samsung for making a smartphone that happens to be white was one of the most retarded, idiotic, moronic things that I have ever read, until I came across this article, describing how Apple sued a teenager for making "conversion kits" to turn iPhones white before Apple was ready to release the white iPhones... The appropriate thing to do in that case would have been to tell Apple they should have gotten their product to market sooner, and stopped using an artificial shortage to inflate sales figures. That is to say, Apple built the hype for a specific product, but hadn't made it to market with that product yet. Someone else made a product that allowed a cosmetic change to Apple's existing product in response to the apparent demand, and they sued the crap out of him.
I am sick and tired of seeing people arguing about implementations of ideas. I am sick and tired of seeing people trying to claim a monopolistic chokehold on the technology industry, simply because they were able to get to the patent office first. I am sick and tired of being afraid to publish my own software, due to the fact that someone out there will claim I'm infringing on some obscure, obvious "to one skilled in the arts" method of doing something that they have a patent on... like clicking a button, or scrolling a text field.
These intellectual property laws are stifling innovation, doing the exact opposite of the original purpose of the system; patents were desig
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
All other mobile device manufacturers ought to join up and use their combined patent pool to put Apple's shenanigans down for good.
"Well, look here dear Apple, if you sue one of us, we'll drop this 10 ton Patent hammer in your groin, repeatedly"
Obviously lawyers have no sense of humour and the language of that message would be somewhat less funny.
Particularly when the antitrust division of the DoJ comes knocking at their doors. You can't set up a patent pool for the purpose of crushing a competitor.
Apple could easily continue 60% growth rates year after year just from the growth the phone ALONE
Lovely; This is exactly the logic which used to predict that the dot coms would soon be larger than the entire world economy. With your prediction Apple's revenue will be larger than the entire world GDP today in less than a decade and a half. I'm assuming that by then the aliens will have made themselves known and put in some extremely large inter-galactic orders?
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Apple could easily continue 60% growth rates year after year just from the growth the phone ALONE can give them
In 20 years Apple will have owned all the financial institutions and in 100 years the Earth crust will be covered by 1 meter of iPhones ALONE - never mind other iOS device like the iPad/touch.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Null Pointer Exceptions?
- Vincit qui patitur.
Even if this sparks patent reform (which it almost certainly won't)
Don't be so sure, this has the mainstream media taking notice of patent problems. There was even an editorial in the Wall Street Journal that was complaining about patent problems. Their solution is different than the one I would choose, but at least they are thinking about these problems now.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I need a little advice.
I am looking to purchase a smartphone, but with all these lawsuits it has become exceedingly difficult to determine exactly which phone will allow me to join the highest possible amount of future class-action suits. I am hoping the sum of settlement payments will exceed the actual cost of the phone and result in a net profit.
Any suggestions?
I read the whole list of comments and did not see a single person mention the fairly important part of the article that seems left out by he summary and headline:
The alternative is that Apple has given some of its patents to Digitude because the patent troll came after it first. The dozen patents Apple has handed over may have been part of a settlement with the firm, along with the license agreement (which would presumably give Apple the rights to its patents, and additional Digitude patents). This seems more likely.
How is it with over a hundred comments no one seems to have RTFA and seen the analysis by Kincaid that says this is most probably a case where Apple was sued by the patent troll and transferred patents as part of a settlement for the lawsuit? Mind you Apple probably could have and should have fought back and demanded a cash only settlement in order to prevent the patent trolling form propagating, but then I can understand not doing so. Microsoft has certainly transferred its patents with trolls several times so paying hard cash to protect competitors seems like a losing strategy in our very, very broken market.
Corporations exist to make money. Therefore, they'll make money however they can. This is entirely allowed by our patent system and isn't evil at all.
You could argue that people don't have any duties towards other people or the society and each should just try to gain as much money as legally possible. You could even argue that if everyone tries to do that, things end up better for all of us. I would disagree but I could at least understand both the ethical and economic principles behind those claims.
Corporations, however, aren't something that "just exist". They're tool that we, as the society, came up with and gave certain exclusive rights to. To be more exact, corporations are tools through which we grant certain people (CEO, Shareholders, etc.) certain rights that they wouldn't otherwise have (e.g., when the company earns money, it can direct it to shareholders but when it can't pay back its debts, we don't hold shareholders personally responsible).
You can say "You don't whitelist rights! Government/Society/etc. don't GIVE rights" but in the case of corporations, society really has created some rights that don't have any ethical reason to exist. They've been created because we believe that if we create them and give them to people who use them responsibly, society becomes a better place and everyone wins. That being the case, we have all the right to say "You either accept BOTH the rights and duties (=some social responsibility) of this corporation-thingy or we don't give you either of them" and thus expect some social responsibility from corporations.
So?
Years and years of data showed processors would keep doubling in performance every 18 months - years and years of data showed the same for harddrives.
x86 was all the rage, current trends points at ARM with Intel and AMD being out of the game if they don't keep up.
Apple should be scared shitless, yes they have a force and a brand that ensures some sales, but more and more people switch to Android; the choices there are just much wider and Apple isn't so much of a fashion statement any more.
OS/2 didn't catch on because the royalty payments that OEM manufacturers had to pay per unit sold went to one of their direct competitors in the PC hardware business.
Also, OS/2 spent too much time being compatible with Windows 3 during the time period when Microsoft was rolling out Windows 95.
What's most interesting about this is that, if I understand TFA right, there are companies out there which make patent trolling on behalf of their clients, to shield the latter from retaliatory suits, their official business plan. That's unbelievably fucked up.
I'm not really anti-patent, but at this point I'm starting to think that scrapping patent system altogether would be less harmful in the long term than letting it continue the way it is.
Even in the 1980s it was well known MS put out crappy software. I didn't have a PC then but I knew this from reading mags. People only used MS software because they thought it was 'good enough', certainly not because MS gave them what they wanted.
See, this is what you don't get. You and Apple both don't get it. Yes, Microsoft put out crappy software. Yes, other software was better. Yes, the Macintosh was a better computer. So was the Amiga. BUT.......
If your software doesn't have the one feature I need, it is useless to me. I will go with the buggy, ugly software that does what I want every single time. This is the core principle of enterprise software. Find out what the customer wants, and do it. If you don't understand this, you will never make it in enterprise. Microsoft got it. Apple didn't. You don't get it either. Maybe if you weren't so busy insulting people, you would.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Looks like Apple wants in on the patent extortion rort.
Apple's competitors can pull the same tricks too- I'd fully expect a few "innovation startups" to spring up soon, preloaded with patent portfolios, and start hitting Apple back.
My hope is that in the resulting mess a few senior people in the bigger organisations take notice and figure out that they could make huge savings by spending some of that money on political lobbying instead, get patent laws cleaned up, and pull the fangs from these lawsuits. These organisations have made great efforts to get the cheapest manufacturing, labour, and development costs. It seems strange that they haven't gone for similar savings in the legal area as well.
But I know that I'm hoping for too much.
Basically, Apple does not want the hit on them, so followed the Sun/MS model of getting another company to do the hit, with the ability to bring money back to them.
Changes in laws are needed. It is truely a disgusting set-up with fucking lawyers.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The longer you wait to file suit for patents the more committed your victims get to the underlying methods.
Which is why the courts recognize a defense called laches. (Google it.) I admit it's weaker for patents and copyrights than it is for trademarks, but if someone accused of infringement can convince a judge that the patent holder waited for the defendant to become more committed before pulling the proverbial rug, the defendant is off the hook for back damages.
Not to mention that Jobs was very vocal about his intentions to sue Android into the ground before he died. Hell, the day he announced the iPhone in 2007 he announced that Apple had applied for over 200 patents on the phone and was ready to enforce them. He tried to do the same thing with the Macintosh look-and-feel lawsuits back in the day but failed. It's clear that he went through great effort make sure Apple had a stronger legal position this time around.
This is absolutely his idea. Anyone trying to pin it the transition to Cook is delusional.
Let's take a step back, stop foaming at the mouth and try to look at this dispassionately. Please note before reading that IANAL.
It's already been documented that Jobs was Not Happy with the direction Android was heading in, and wanted nothing less than to kill the platform altogether, to hell with any collateral damage this might do the industry as a whole. I think it's vanishingly unlikely that Jobs surrounded himself with people who would take a live and let-live attitude, so the fact that he's passed on is likely neither here nor there.
Now, it's unthinkable that Apple might have failed to notice Microsoft's ability to extort royalty payments out of Android handset vendors. So it looks like they're trying to do the same thing. This makes a lot of sense for two reasons:
1. Anyone looking to base a new product on Android will now think twice - is "free" such a bargain if you've got to license so many patents from so many places? Might be cheaper to build your own or license a commercial product and get some sort of patent indemnification at the same time.
2. Anyone who's already got a bunch of Android products on the market will be paying Apple.
But there's a problem. The cellphone industry is absolutely swimming in patents - some of which must be licensed on reasonable, non-discriminatory terms, some of which have no such restriction, some of which are in enough of a grey area that the holder could easily eat up a lot of lawyer time. Apple can certainly expect counter-claims if they sue every Android handset maker on the planet - and regardless of the outcome, each will mean years thrashing out a solution. Years of injunctions to prevent sale of the latest product, appeals against those injunctions, the works.
Solution? Well, if a company that doesn't make anything does the suing - a patent troll, if you like - there's much less scope for retaliatory counter-claims. Set up such a company, transfer the appropriate patents to it and let that company do the suing. An elegant solution engineered explicitly to game the legal system. But I'm not sure how the legal system will react to such a gaming - I can see it attracting antitrust action.