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BT Sues Google Over Android
phonewebcam writes "British Telecom is claiming billions of dollars of damages from Google in a lawsuit filed in the U.S. which says that the Android mobile operating system infringes a number of the telecoms company's key patents. The lawsuit, filed in the state of Delaware in the U.S., relates to six patents which BT says are infringed by the Google Maps, Google Music, location-based advertising and Android Market products on Android. If successful, the suit could mean that Google or mobile handset makers will have to pay BT royalties on each Android handset in use and which they produce."
There's one big reason I'll pay attention to this one:
Patent trolls file in Texas; serious patent holders file in Delaware.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Why allowing Software Patents is foolish. It destroys innovation and rewards established players and those with deep pockets. (It also allows the established players to pick the pockets of others, whether they are deep or not.)
Abolish software patents. Software should be covered under copyright as it is written material. Patents are for physical objects. Not the written word (or code).
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
The patent cited in the article as an example of BT's amazingly valuable innovations:
Deciding whether to stream music based on whether the phone is using a wifi or cellular connection.
Why the fuck is that patentable? Seriously, I just looked up "obvious" in the dictionary and it gave that idea as an example. That's not an invention or a technology. What the fuck, America?
The OP points out that it covers other Google products, and it could also cover other mobile phone environments. We expect it will also be followed up very quickly by similar patent claims in Europe, where the German courts have been fast, and friendly towards patent holders. http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/bt-sues-google-claiming-android-patent-infringements-50431
N/T
Why doesn't British Telecom file suit in their own country? Serious patent holders would, at least in my guess, have a home turf advantage.
I8-D
Even more reason I am glad I got away from them.
Corrupt, shitty company in every sense of the word.
You guys in America should count yourself lucky that you haven't had to deal with BT, that oligopoly doesn't come close to how awful BT are and were before they got told by the antitrust guys.
Although it seems many of them over there have been taking in some knowledge of the nasty crap BT has pulled over the years.
Stop them. Stop them before it is too late.
Nuke them from orbit, it is the only way. (sorta serious in that case because trying to get the law to do something about an oligopoly is like trying to pull teeth FROM A WALL)
Good luck.
Also, down with software patents, blah blah the usual. Destroy them before they manage to pay the rest of the world in to accepting software patents and destroying the entire software industry for generations.
Here's my poor non-lawyer summary of the patents for those too lazy to look them up.
Busioc granted in 2000 seems to be a troll patent on anything that reacts to detected network characteristics. TCP window size control since the 80s seems to be prior art, although anycast root DNS servers from the 90s would appear to be a close second.
Mannings1 granted in 1994 seems to be a troll patent on anything navigational that relies on a base and mobile part. Like LORAN from the 60s, or any of the moon shots from the 60s where the capsule relied on the IBM 7094 mainframe to run the calcs back home.
Titmuss1 granted in 2002 seems to be a troll patent where the the contents of a list depend on the location of the user. Like my Garmin GPS-12XL "nearest waypoint list" from the 90s, or any brick and mortar website with a "find the closest store" functionality.
Gittins granted 2003 seems to be a troll patent where you have a database server accessed over the network that has user based permissions. Like any mysql installation. It seems to be a pretty good description of the DB2 IBM mainframe server I was tangentially involved with about 20 years ago (%^&# source route bridging SDLC by mac addresses still gives me nightmares)
Mannings2 granted 2003 seems to be a troll patent where you have a Mannings1 system plus the result depends on the type of vehicle. Apparently providing different "walk" vs "drive" route results is safe because my shoes are not a vehicle, but providing "car" vs "boat" results would be a direct violation of this patent.
Titmuss2 granted 2004 seems to be a troll patent where a distributed architecture and network is used to store location information. Basically, any computing infrastructure storing location information that does not have an obvious single point of failure; The CLR/DLR circuit layout system from my previous telecom employer would seem to be a pretty good example of an infringing product; of course that was from the 1980s, and Ma Bell had much older networked location aware systems. Remember ma bell's weird V+H coordinate system? I do.
I believe this is a pretty accurate non-lawyer summary of the patents involved.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
These are such broad patents that there is no way Google are the only ones infringing, and there is no sound reason to only sue Google. This sounds suspiciously like someone is suing Google through proxy. Unfortunately with all the big media companies having nothing more to say apart from regurgitating whatever Florian Muller puts out, and he is too exultant about Google getting sued again to care about anything else, I don't see much hope of someone digging deeper.
Anyone remember BT suing Prodigy some 10 years ago regarding their claim to the Hyperlink???
I mean, take a look at Apple's "If it's black and rectangular, it's ours" patent. The reason why it was persued in the USA was that the patent lasted longer and was still in effect. Also check RIM's patent success against US company Blackberry.
It was as valid a patent as any in the computing world.
It was my hope that BT would lose and the courts would have ruled something substantive about ridiculous patents. They failed.
This seems like the new business model:
I do not like these developments. Soon the royalty fees on an Android will cost more than the device itself.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
And I thought their tower made them look like dicks
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
doh! broke the href. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BT_Tower-1.jpg
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
>The idea that I can be presented with a problem, set out to logically solve it
>with the tools at hand, and wind up with a program that could not be legally
>used because someone else followed the same logical steps some years
>ago and filed for a patent on it is horrifying.
>
> On software patents, Quoted in "John Carmack: Knee Deep in the Voodoo" Voodo Extreme(2000-09-20)
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_D._Carmack
If the world is going to keep up with this ridiculous process of patenting software then companies that sue other companies (sigh. . .all software companies) had better do some research to find out who supposedly has the first patent. Theoretically, you shouldn't be able to sue Google for a location based advertising patent if Apple was suing Google, because Apple claims it first. But of course it probably isn't that simple, there are probably dozens of companies around the world that can make the claim of having a such a patent.
Continuing on this hypothetical rant, what if a company in the US actually has the first patent but never sued anyone because they were too small to feel they could win? Yet when they sell their patent to a legal firm, like Apple sold patents to Digitude who could then sue companies the shell company has the very real potential to win.
Does this invalidate the other lawsuits from the other companies who filed over the same patent? Does this happen? I honestly don't know.
I'm surprised that BT have the money to do this any more, I was working for them just 18 months ago and it was seriously 'a once huge company in decline'. They seemed like they were making the right moves to sort themselves out but this kind of bull stinks of desperation.
At this point, I'm hoping that the system becomes so deadlocked with Software patents and everybody has a sword to everybody else's throat that even the big players have a reason to try and get the system dismantled. I'll be like a fever: unfortunate as it happens, but useful for ending the infection.
So are we at the point where you're guaranteed to be sued by somebody every time you create a new product?
Do you check every 5 mins to see who replied to your bs?
Your phalic comments are just a projection of what you crave...
Since when has BT produced anything of actual value? Whereas Android is a great alternative to the iApple hegemony.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Can BT show that they've been damaged in any way at all by Android? I think that legally you have to show how you've been damaged.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Software patents were not allowed until the Business Process Patent act which opened Pandora's box. This was in the late 1990's, which is much less than 30 years.
Is there evidence that it hurts the economy? yes there is tremendous evidence. Look at market, trends, and innovation levels between the 1970s and 1980s and look what happened in the late 1990s after the first patent law suites were filed.
The only people that benefit from Software Patents are attorneys and big businesses. Many of which spend millions of man hours a year doing nothing but submitting patent requests. Microsoft for example submits over 1,000,000 patent requests per year. Most of these are dismissed as "trivial" and "obvious". What do they actually innovate when these requests are for things like status bars, mouse clicks, and shared object use.. which has been around for 40+ years. They search for the holy grail patent wording to get things through the system. All this in the name of getting patent's and stifling competition and innovation, contrary to what patents are supposed to be for.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
BT was one of my first lessons in harsh business. I sent them a device for use with their Red Care division (Scotland I think) for integration with elevators/lifts. The device was supposedly opened up by customs. In the end, they ripped off the solution and that was the end of it. I wish I'd encrypted the hard drive, but that's life - shit happens.
Since this incident my R&D is a lot more under lock & key.
another problem with software patents vs mechanical systems (for example) is the fact that software is completely closed. there is no way to modify, change or add onto the code because it is usually compiled into a format that cannot be accessed.
I think an interesting reform to software patents would be the requirement to disclose the source code... ALL OF IT. That way there would be some value given to the community in exchange for the protection that is given.