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."

Comments

I'll be watching this one

[msobkow]

There's one big reason I'll pay attention to this one:

filed in the state of Delaware in the US

Patent trolls file in Texas; serious patent holders file in Delaware.

Re:I'll be watching this one

[JonahsDad]

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/

Re:I'll be watching this one

[mjwalshe]

As a BT employee at the time - they where on very shaky ground on this one. - The claim was based off of some arcane functionality used in PRESTEL ( a video text system) and totally ignored the prior art from 1947/48 Vadavar Bushes description of memex was a far better description of a hyper link.

Internally all the techies thought this was a stupid idea.

I used to work for PRESTEL and had not come across this supposed hyperlink functionality.

Yet Another Reason...

[d3ac0n]

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).

Re:Yet Another Reason...

[d3ac0n]

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.

Re:Yet Another Reason...

[Anthony Mouse]

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.

Re:Yet Another Reason...

[Anthony Mouse]

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.

What the fuck?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:What the fuck?

[icebraining]

U.S. Patent No. 6151309

Claims
What is claimed is:

1. A service provision system for use with a communications network to provide a plurality of services to a network user, wherein data relevant to the plurality of services can be made available to the user dependent upon the location of the user within the network, and the user can select one or more services to be provided, said system including

control means comprising a plurality of software agents, individual agents of said plurality comprising data relevant to service provision the network,
updating means for updating data held by at least some of said software agents on a point-by-point continuous basis as the user changes location within the network,
the control means maintaining and communicating the updated data made available to the user and responsive to selection of a service by the user to trigger a process for providing the selected service to the user.

2. A system according to claim 1 wherein said communications network comprises at least in part a mobile communications network and the user has access to said mobile network.

3. A system according to claim 2 wherein the control means is responsive to transfer of the user between cells of the mobile network, said cells having different resources to offer in respect of services to the user, to update data made available to the user which is affected by said transfer.

4. A system according to claim 3 wherein at least one of the services potentially available to the user is affected by bandwidth availability in the cell in which the user has access to the mobile network, and the control means may update the data available to the user in terms of either availability of such service or the price at which it would be available.

5. A system according to either of claim 3 or 4 wherein at least one of the services potentially available to the user involves the downloading of data to the user, which downloading is affected by bandwidth availability in cells of the mobile network, said system further comprising means to store data requested by the user as a consequence of selecting a service, the control means controlling downloading of said data to the user such that it is stored at times that bandwidth is not available for said downloading, and downloaded subsequently when bandwidth becomes available.

6. A system according to claim 5 wherein the control means includes means for tracking the location of the user with respect to the mobile network for the purpose of downloading the data to the user by means of appropriate routing through the communications network or networks.

7. A system according to claim 1 wherein the data relevant to the plurality of services includes real-time pricing data such that the user can take the real-time pricing data into account prior to selecting a service.

8. A system according to claim 1 wherein:

a plurality of said individual agents are each allocated a facility for offering a common service,
each of said plurality of individual agents holding real-time data in respect of its allocated facility's capacity to offer the service, and
the system selects one of the allocated facilities on which to base notification to the user of current conditions under which a service might be provided.

9. A system according to claim 1 wherein at least one of said agents comprises means for storing an updatable business strategy, and the system accesses said business strategy prior to making cost-related service data available to a user, such that said business strategy can be applied to said cost-related service data to modify the data appropriately.

10. A service provision system for use with a communications network including a mobile communications sub-network to provide a plurality of services to a network user having access to the

Re:Probably Silly Question, but....

[bhunachchicken]

"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.

Poor summary of the patents

[vlm]

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.

Everybody wants a piece of Android's action

[PolygamousRanchKid]

This seems like the new business model:

1. Find a large volume successful product.
2. Convince a court that it infringes on "your" patent.
3. Settle for "a few cents" per item sold, as the Mafia say, "a piece of the action." Like a "tax."
4. Profit, for someone else's work.

I do not like these developments. Soon the royalty fees on an Android will cost more than the device itself.

Re:Probably Silly Question, but....

[a_n_d_e_r_s]

They can only sue where the patents are valid. If it's US patents - they have to sue in the US.

Britain har been much more restrictive in allowing software patents. So I doubt they got british patent
for those 'inventions'.

 

John Carmack on Software patents

[BlackSupra]

>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

Re:John Carmack on Software patents

[icebraining]

Carmack posted a better message about software patents right here on /. : http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=151312&cid=12701745

Re:Because it was british

[Ensign Morph]

I mean, take a look at Apple's "If it's black and rectangular, it's ours" patent.

The ipad injunction involved a European "Community Design", an appallingly stupid concept which is actually considerably worse than patents. There's no obviousness or prior art test AT ALL, they're simply granted automatically upon payment of the filing fee. It's absolutely guaranteed to be abused like this, in fact as the link shows Apple have a program that spam-registers designs which they have no intention of even using, just to make life difficult for their competitors. It's hard to escape the conclusion that it's simply a cynical device to collect those filing fees, with the negative effects on business and consumers being somebody else's problem.

Oh, and the extremely generic community design they used for the ipad thing was filed in 2004, 6 years before the first ipad announcement.