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BT Sues Google Over Android

Posted by samzenpus on from the sue-cycle dept.

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."

13 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. Yet Another Reason... by d3ac0n · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Yet Another Reason... by d3ac0n · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Except that "process" in the patent system refers to manufacturing processes. Still tied intrinsically to the physical world. Modern lawyers have shoehorned written software into the patent world by calling it "A system or method or process".

      I'm saying we should disallow this and eliminate all software patents.

      You say the software world has done pretty well under patents, I say that so few companies were writing software until the last 10 years that almost nobody ran into issues with it. Back in the '60's when software was first allowed to be patentable they were still using PUNCH CARDS and computers filled whole rooms! Maybe 100 people on the PLANET could write software, and most of them knew each other, so patents weren't an issue.

      Now that software is everywhere we are running into the hard limits of the patent system and innovation by anyone other than the giants is suffering.

      I'm a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist, so believe me, my opinion is not formed from some communistic desire to eliminate profit. My desire is to unlock the potential of software and software writers to bring us new and innovative ideas and allow the little guy some room to join in without the big guys monopolizing the market.

      I want everyone to have a chance to maximize their profit through honest marketplace competition, and to stop the minimizing of that marketplace by the artifice of patents.

      --
      Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
    2. Re:Yet Another Reason... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      And all the anti-software patent people should preface their posts with "I'm a software developer" so we can ignore their biased perspective as well. Everyone has bias, there is no true neutral perspective. You can't just discount someone's argument because you don't like their profession. It's your job as a reasonable thinker to filter out the bias and evaluate the facts, and form a conclusion from there.

    3. Re:Yet Another Reason... by Anthony+Mouse · · Score: 5, Insightful

      To the extent developers feel otherwise, I haven't seen a calm, and rationale counter-argument.

      The obvious problem if you're expecting citations to caselaw or statutes is that developers don't know anything about that stuff. They see the results, they don't like them, they complain about it.

      But let me see if I can help you understand the frustration:

      Let's put software patent holders into three classes: Larger practicing entities (e.g. Microsoft), smaller practicing entities (start-ups) and non-practicing entities (trolls). The problem is this: Consider what happens in the interaction between members of each class.

      It sounds like you already agree that the trolls are a problem, so l won't expound upon that other than to say that it's a serious problem when actual innovators can be stopped in their tracks by an army invincible trolls that never have to defend and so can keep attacking until they win.

      So let's consider the interactions between the two remaining classes of software patent holders. The least problematic is interactions between two smaller companies, because there basically aren't any; neither is worth the other's time. But neither do these non-interactions provide anyone any benefit. They just don't happen at any scale. Next least problematic is the interactions between two larger companies, because they generally just cross-license. This isn't the most serious problem, but it does have the tendency to create a wealth transfer from smaller large companies to larger large companies, since the latter naturally tend to have more patents, and that can be seen as undesirable. (The largest companies have enough advantages, thank you.) Moreover, it creates a large inefficiency, because most patents are just used in cross-licensing negotiations to cancel out the other guy's patents, so that the whole exercise becomes a giant waste of resources because each side would be better off if neither had any patents (because they didn't exist) than to have to file, prosecute and negotiate only to came to the same result: a cross-license that cancels out the respective efforts of each company with those of the other.

      But the most serious problem is the last: Interactions between major companies and start-ups. This is where the patent system is supposed to make up for itself, by preventing a large company from copying the little guy's product with impunity. The problem is that because of the way software patents work, and the way software works, unlike in other industries you just can't make a significant product that doesn't infringe major companies' software patents. They have too many that are too broad, and even if you think you can win you certainly can't afford to litigate it as a small company. So you the patent system is worse than nothing for the little guy, because it allows larger companies to crush them with patent litigation at will. If the larger company wants to infringe their patents, all they have to do is hang the threat of litigation over them before the larger company starts infringing, which puts the little guy over a barrel and allows the larger company to extract a license. Or just force them to accept a buy out for millions instead of billions. The only way a smaller company can defend itself is by discontinuing its product and becoming a patent troll, which as far as I can tell is the single most abominable result possible.

    4. Re:Yet Another Reason... by psxndc · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Thank you for responding. I see where your coming from, I do, but I disagree.

      You view it as "working around for no good reason" but the exclusivity right granted by patents are how they are supposed to promote the useful arts and sciences. You having to work around it means you have to come up with a new and different way of doing it. If it's worse, and the person that has the patent came up with THE best way to solve a particular problem, shouldn't they be rewarded for that ingenuity? If it's not THE best way to do it, maybe their patent will force you to find a better way, thereby promoting the arts and sciences.

      Removing existing products from the market doesn't have any impact on the promotion of arts and sciences; designing around the existing patents is what causes that.

      As I've said in response to others, I don't see why software should be treated any differently than any other technology area. You haven't given me a reason they should.

      --

      The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.

    5. Re:Yet Another Reason... by Anthony+Mouse · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You raise some fair points, although I disagree that smaller companies interacting doesn't benefit anyone; they may form a partnership based on a mutual use of their respective technologies and establish a market foothold that neither could individually.

      Sure, they can form a partnership if their technologies are complementary, but couldn't they do that regardless of software patents?

      Second, and I realize this is a little unfair to raise it at this stage, but I don't see how software patents are special or should be treated with any differently than any other technology. None of your examples hinge on the technology being software - those scenarios apply in the biology world or semiconsiductor world as well. Why is it that software patents specifically should be abolished? Or are you arguing that the entire patent system should go?

      Software is a different animal because it has effectively zero reproduction costs. The consequence is that you get the kitchen sink with everything. There is no feature that must be left out because it costs too much to manufacture.

      It means that everything is infringing everything because everything includes everything. If you invent a new brake disc for a car, you don't include a free car with every brake disc you sell. In software, you do, because including the rest of the car has no cost. You can include every kind of car and truck ever made, every different kind of tire, the road, a garage full of lifts and tools and a variety of petroleum refineries and electrical generating stations to provide fuel for the various cars. All by just including a few libraries. And users expect these things. Your competitors have them. Which makes the surface area for possible infringement expand to completely unmanageable proportions.

      It breaks an assumption the patent system is built on, which is that non-obvious combinations of prior art stuff are unlikely to be created at random. When you can combine everything with anything for free, getting those otherwise unlikely combinations without even trying suddenly becomes extremely likely. Independent invention becomes the rule rather than the exception. Which leads to all of these problems.

    6. Re:Yet Another Reason... by scot4875 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yeah, except that the conflict of interest isn't anywhere near equivalent.

      Patent attorney: if patent system exists, patent attorney has a job. If patent system doesn't exist, patent attorney doesn't have a job.

      Software developer: if software patent system exists, software developer has a job (demonstratably -- in fact we have this situation right now!). If patent system doesn't exist, software developer ... still has their job. Maybe you can argue that the job might be easier if we get rid of the software patents, and in that there's some sort of conflict of interest, but you'll still have a really tough time convincing me that the level of bias is even remotely equal.

      --Jeremy

      --
      Jesus was a liberal
  2. Probably Silly Question, but.... by Kamiza+Ikioi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Probably Silly Question, but.... by bhunachchicken · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "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."

      Probably because it would eventually be referred to a court in the EU, and the judge would simply tell BT to fuck off.

      --
      THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
  3. There has to be more to this by dell623 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:I'll be watching this one by goombah99 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't think they are patent trolls, somehow.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Group

    Depends on your point of view. This is the company that sued (and lost) claiming a patent on the hyperlink.

    http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/networking/2000/12/18/bt-sues-over-hyperlink-claim-2083266/

    I was wondering the same thing. But the article said most of these patents were filed in the 1990s and were products of it's research department. This lends some credibility that these are not rushes to patent the obvious in a new context but rather very early research that perhaps deservedly should be rewarded for pushing technology forward.

    But it does remain to be seen. A patent on deciding if you have enough bandwidth to stream or download a file sure doesn't sound like much of an innovation.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
  5. Re:What the fuck? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    It's an American patent, jackass.

  6. Re:What the fuck? by Raenex · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sigh. You need to look at the actual claims. That line just describes what the patent accomplishes, not how.

    Yes, this is said in nearly every Slashdot story about patents. Yet in almost all cases, the how is obvious once you know what the idea is, and the only things the claims do is describe it in an obscure fashion.