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ITC Throws Out B&N Antitrust Claims Against MS
N!NJA writes with an excerpt from a post by Florian Mueller: "Barnes & Noble's primary line of defense against Microsoft's allegations of patent infringement by the bookseller's Android-based devices has collapsed in its entirety. An Administrative Law Judge at the ITC today granted a Microsoft motion to dismiss, even ahead of the evidentiary trial that will start next Monday (February 6), Barnes & Noble's 'patent misuse' defense against Microsoft. [...] Prior to the ALJ, the ITC staff — or more precisely, the Office of Unfair Import Investigations (OUII), which participates in many investigations as a third party representing the public interest — already supported Microsoft's motion all the way. The OUII basically concluded that even if all of what Barnes & Noble said about Microsoft's use of patents against Android was accurate, it would fall far short of the legal requirements for a patent misuse defense."
Good thing Mr Gates decided to start investing in DC Lobbying infrastructure after the first round of anti-trust charges. Sure it costs millions of dollars a year, but think of all the abuses you can muster!!!
People still take this guy seriously?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The OUII basically concluded that even if all of what Barnes & Noble said about Microsoft's use of patents against Android was accurate, it would fall far short of the legal requirements for a patent misuse defense. For example, Barnes & Noble claimed that Microsoft asked for excessively high patent license fees, but the OUII quoted passages from U.S. law (statutory as well as case law) that clearly said that patent law doesn't require a patent holder to grant a license on any terms.
So, basically, it was game over before it got started.
It's not about creation anymore.
It's all about owning segments of possible creation.
And those have been mostly divvied up, given the ridiculously broad areas of thought and ideas that we allow to be patented.
Check your premises.
The Microsoft-created features protected by the patents infringed by the Nook and Nook Color tablet are core to the user experience. For example, the patents we asserted today protect innovations that:
* Give people easy ways to navigate through information provided by their device apps via a separate control window with tabs;
* Enable display of a webpage’s content before the background image is received, allowing users to interact with the page faster;
* Allow apps to superimpose download status on top of the downloading content;
* Permit users to easily select text in a document and adjust that selection; and
* Provide users the ability to annotate text without changing the underlying document.
Microsoft obviously thinks this is pretty advanced stuff. Adjust a text selection? Annotate a document? Tabbed controls? Woah. No wonder they want $30 per device (more than the cost of licensing WP7!).
... and it's not a tax.
Rather, Microsoft is a medieval style guild, and they collect dues from any who would practice their trade. If you don't pay, they come and burn down our house.
And it goes way, way deeper than any "shortcuts". To put it another way, if we were talking about mechanical and structural engineering, not only would MS hold the rights to be the sole bridge builders in the land, but the very concept of a device or structure to facilitate the crossing of a body of water would be theirs. They'd own the rights to cables, supports, bolts; not only to steel but to alloys in general.
With our technology, there is nothing that doesn't stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before at this point. We should still be in a rapid development cycle, spinning upward. Instead, we squabble over who gets to build anything at all.
And eventually, we're going to absolutely destroy American technological innovation. First, by making it impossible for most everyone but the established players to build anything at all. And by doing so, we will lay the groundwork for the first other nation to surpass us to absolutely ensure that we are subject to the very idiotic laws that we are using to choke our own innovation.
Check your premises.
Fact is that software systems other than Microsoft's run most devices available. BusyBox rules the roost, Android has a huge portable devices market and the rest of the know universe belongs to Apple with a smattering of odd ball stuff like Symbian. The United States patent office has been subverted by companies like Microsoft and the rest of the world is now becoming the source for real product innovation.
Plain and simple the whole concept of an economy based more on IP than real products has backfired. The statements coming out of Washington about how IP has to be protected at all cost and how American "innovations" are more valuable than real products has led to this sad state of affairs.
The rest of the world could care less, America is being miss lead by corporate junkies like Steve Ballmer and the economy is going to go down the tank because of corporations like Microsoft and the failure and shameful decline of real industrial innovation, education and leadership within the United States.
Microsoft obviously thinks this is pretty advanced stuff. Adjust a text selection? Annotate a document? Tabbed controls? Woah. No wonder they want $30 per device (more than the cost of licensing WP7!).
I really wish 'obvious' were a common defense in patent fights, because so many patents ARE obvious.
But as far as I know, no patent case has ever been one because the patent was obvious. One-click-purchasing is still patented by Amazon, even after a LOT of fighting.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Resistance is irrelevant. You will be copyrighted. Public domain is irrelevant. COPYRIGHT COPYRIGHT COPYRIGHT
What happens when you cross the Borg with the Dalaks. You get "patent trolls".
GPL does nothing to stop third-parties from asserting patents. The outcome would not have changed if Google GPLed android.
Fast Federal Court and I.T.C. updates
And here's what an actual freakin IP attorney thinks. I remember when Mueller got backed into a corner on that site a while back - he was *way* out of his depth even with amateurs.
C|N>K
before making any assumptions:
Lots more here.
It was in the Barnes and Noble court filing, they said MS wanted more money per device for "Linux patent protection" than they charge to license WP7. I think the exact amounts got redacted in the court filings though.
They do make more money licensing Android patents than they do from WP7 licenses. It's right there in their corporate reports.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia