Google, Motorola Ordered To Provide Android Info To Apple

snydeq writes "A U.S. judge has ordered Motorola Mobility and Google to turn over information to Apple on Google's acquisition in 2005 of Android, its development of the Android OS and the proposed acquisition of Motorola. According to Motorola, the information Apple seeks regarding Google's acquisition of Motorola and Android is not relevant to any damages asserted in the case." This comes alongside news that Apple has offered licensing deals to Motorola and Samsung that would resolve some of the patent litigation. Apple is reportedly asking for $5-$15 per device sold.

Comments

lame

[masternerdguy]

Oh shit. There goes the planet.

Re:lame

[VortexCortex]

Oh shit. There goes the planet.

There's nothing to worry about at the moment. Wait to start worrying until we have more details next year...
...Wait, you meant to reply to the asteroid story, right?

Re:lame

[gmhowell]

Oh shit. There goes the planet.

There's nothing to worry about at the moment. Wait to start worrying until we have more details next year... ...Wait, you meant to reply to the asteroid story, right?

Or possibly Spaceballs.

Re:lame

[Anonymous Coward]

No time to wait. Burn everything now. Then maybe the asteroid won't want it.

Re:lame

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

No time to wait. Burn everything now. Then maybe the asteroid won't want it.

Yeah, destruction of evidence - that's the way to go.

Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Lennie]

So some manufacturers will end up paying Apple and Microsoft per device sold ? That's crazy.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[macshit]

Yes, our broken patent system is crazy. It stifles innovation and harms society. That's why it should be significantly reformed (i.e., gutted).

That won't happen, of course, because companies like MS and Apple can afford to make it not happen. What's actually good for society is pretty much irrelevant.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[exomondo]

So some manufacturers will end up paying Apple and Microsoft per device sold ? That's crazy.

That's pretty much the way it goes, everyone licenses patents from everyone else, for example Microsoft licenses a lot of patents from OpenWave and Apple licenses patents from Lodsys.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[zill]

I used to think the patent licensing system was like racketeering. But I was wrong.

With racketeering you only have to pay one gang. With the patent system you have to pay multiple gangs.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You've got it exactly backwards. The patent system promotes innovation to society's benefit by ensuring that inventors reap the rewards of their efforts. If entries were legally allowed to copy the good ideas of others then and only then would innovation suffer because nobody would go to the effort to invent anything new.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[chentiangemalc]

Google is just as guilty of this as anyone. They also have no desire to actually push for patent reforms; as they also rely on many patents for their search business.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Daniel Phillips]

Apparently, Apple and Microsoft are both counting on Linux to secure their retirement income.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is just as guilty of this as anyone. They also have no desire to actually push for patent reforms; as they also rely on many patents for their search business.

please point out one lawsuit that had to do with a google search patent. In fact google openly provided map reduce framework on handling large datasets a key to their search business.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, why can't we just lynch everyone involved in these patent suits. From the greedy board of directors to the evil lawyers?

Hey megacorps, why not focus on... Oh I don't know... Making a better product? Think of all that R&D money wasted on lawyers. Just a shame.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[VortexCortex]

Yes, our broken patent system is crazy. It stifles innovation and harms society. That's why it should be significantly reformed (i.e., gutted).

I think patents should be eradicated outright, screw reform. Geniuses aren't special. There were two telephones in the PTO within hours of each other. Edison's 1880 Light-bulb patent came after Swan's 1878 UK patent for an improved incandescent lamp in a vacuum tube... Some of my teenage hobby source code is prior art that would invalidate many software patents held today (eg: VMware's saving & restoring VM state -- my Lisp VM did just that). Granting a monopoly over an idea because you made it to the patent office first is not valuable in today's society. The patent system has never worked as intended, it has always favoured the rich and established, not the basement genius.

I say we eradicate the patent system. The "no more innovation argumenteers" can argue all they want, but without testing the hypothesis it's all just untested conjecture. I say let's do the experiment. It's not like we can't re-instate whatever BS laws we want.

What if we sold the devices BLANK! Then you could by the Android OS firmware you want, or install your own separately installed via SD card. You know, like in the good old days, when you paid for hardware without being forced to pay for software too.

I've read lots of software patents and they all use a loophole: "Method and Apparatus for _____"
You see, the software is merely a binary description of the method, it's not an apparatus unless you consider the mind an apparatus... Neither can the blank general purpose computer AKA Apparatus by itself infringe a software patent.

So, the patent would only apply once the end user installs the software on the device and boots it, and eventually executes the patented instructions that implement the Method on the Apparatus -- if they ever do. Good luck suing all the end users, esp. when it's not clear that their machines executed the infringing code.

A patent application has a description of the patented process in it. That can be translated into Spanish, HTML, PDF, pseudo-code, etc. and it's not an infringement. OK, so what If It's translated into C? Still not an infringement, right? What if the C code is translated to machine code, or what if I actually manually translate the patent application into machine code (as I do occasionally, when I debug the compilers I make). I can execute those machine instructions on graph paper with a pencil, my mind is the Apparatus. So, this shouldn't be an infringement either.

You could sell the devices blank with only a PDF on them that actually describes the patented processes... right? I mean, downloading a PDF of a patent doesn't magically make my PC infringe the patent described therein. So, you could just as easily have placed the pseudo-code translation of said software patent claims on the otherwise blank device, still not an infringement, eh? What about C? Here's a device with a C code description of a patent in it. Is that an infringement? Nope. I'm having a hard time following the logical leap whereby the machine code translation of the patent claims creates an infringing use... eg: what if the device has the wrong firmware -- OR no power source -- That non-function device can't infringe a patent on a store shelf...

Well, let's say said device has a compiler present? If the C code isn't an infringement -- It's equivalent to a French or Pseudo-code translation of the patent -- then, you could simply compile the offending code yourself the first time the device is used. Wouldn't that "route-around" the distributor's infringing of said patents?

Seriously... this software patent crap has to stop.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Capt. Skinny]

That was the original intent, yes. But overly broad patents owned by litigious corporations with deep pockets have created a fear among inventors or potential inventors that any new invention will be labeled as infringing by some corporation owning some broad patent. As a result, only the litigious corporations with deep pockets dare take the risk of selling a new invention.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[slew]

FWIW: Android != Linux

In a nutshell Android is a Linux based kernel w/ some power saving improvements (e.g, wakelocks for drivers) and that's pretty much where the similarities end.

Android ships w/o most of the standard libraries (e.g., Xlib), and includes lots of Android specific middleware and support Apache Harmony (java compatible libraries). Although most applications are often written in Java, instead of being compiled to java bytecode and run on a standard JVM, Android uses it's own Dalvik byte code and Dalvik VM, and Android only supports it's own SDK so standard Java apps that use standard class libraries often won't run.

Other than provide a stable OS to run Android w/ lots of device drivers, it's not clear how much of Linux is really required to run Android. I suspect that it could even be ported to a BSD based OS w/o too much trouble (if someone wanted to go through the trouble to make it a pure Apache style license)...

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Capt. Skinny]

I think patents should be eradicated outright, screw reform. Geniuses aren't special.

Innovation requires more effort than genius. There are few "Ah-ha!" developments that come to people in the middle of the night in a dream. Patents are intended to create a profit incentive for people to put in the requisite effort, thereby encouraging innovation for the public good.

Without a profit incentive, why should I spend years in my lab building a better solar panel, or heart valve, or internal combustion engine? As soon as my years of hard work pay off and I put my product on the market, countless other companies would be able to offer the same thing for only the cost of reverse engineering my product. I endured all the up-front development costs, yet I make the same profit as everyone else who starts selling it because I have to compete with everyone else. I'm a nice guy, but I'm not self-sacrificing.

Seriously... this software patent crap has to stop.

The crap, yes. Patents themselves, no.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Aryden]

not when a company (Apple) can sue and win in court because a device has rounded corners and thus infringes on their patent (see Apple vs Samsung). I think the end result was, it couldn't be rectangular with rounded corners or have a "home" button of any sort.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[dumuzi]

A case of Google abusing their patent repetoir. Though it is not a lawsuit involving a search patent, it does demonstrate the GP's point.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Skapare]

There doesn't have to be an actual lawsuit. The screwed up patent system creates its own FUD.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey megacorps, why not focus on... Oh I don't know... Making a better product? Think of all that R&D money wasted on lawyers. Just a shame.

And when you create a product from all that R&D money and a competitor simply "clones" the product, isn't that R&D money wasted? Well from the perspective of the creator who spent the money, not the cloner who free loaded.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Skapare]

If you would just f---ing quit referring to the issue as "software patent" (as in "software patents are bad"), and focus on the real issue of patents ... that they are ALL all bad (except those that meet the original patent justification of innovation that would never have happened were it not for the possibility of a patent), regardless of whether software, hardware, or anything else, then maybe we can actually start to get some traction on the issue. Instead, with people merely claiming "software patents" are what is bad, people just won't see the real issue (that 99.9% of patents are not innovation, and are just corporations trying to grab a government sanction to own something that can let them destroy competition).

Just because the rise of non-innovative patents is happening concurrently with the rise of software methods being patented (or rather, methods that are typically implemented in software), does not mean that software itself is the reason for something to not be patented. The few and rare cases of genuinely innovative ideas could very well be implemented in hardware or software, in many of those cases.

I'm not proposing the scrapping of the patent system. It's still justified. We just need to operate it strictly for the innovations that justify it.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[lorenlal]

I'm glad you found one case that was opened before Google acquired Motorola Mobility, where MM was actively defending against a troll in Microsoft. Microsoft accusing anyone of abusing patents is kinda like a black hole calling something dark. Seeing how the litigation between MS and MM has been going on since 10/10, I'm going to say your example isn't making GGP's assertion true. In fact, I'm willing to say that if that's the best someone can come up with, that assertion is absolutely false.

Your case is more an example of how Microsoft has been abusing its patent portfolio for seriously hideous patents. Most manufacturers just signed up to pay MS a cost of a Windows Mobile license to avoid litigation, and they passed the cost on to the consumer. You're thinking that deserves defense and benefits us? Apple wants a cut of the same action. They're proving that they're no better than MS, NTP and SCO in my book.

All this does is reinforce the idea that if you're a small time inventor, or even a big time manufacturer, who really wants to make a product that innovates, and gives people something they really want... There's no chance in hell in the US. MS, Apple, NTP, Honeywell or some other patent holding company will just kill you for making it remotely useful.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

In a nutshell Android is a Linux based kernel w/ some power saving improvements

So, Android is Linux, then. Gotcha, glad that's clear. Nobody cares about your favorite userland libraries.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree they are separate issues, but I think they both need to be addressed. Software should not be patentable, because it's an algorithm, with is a mathematical discovery, much like genes shouldn't be patented (even though they are), because they are a biological discovery, not an invention. But also, non-innovative things should not be patentable either, for the reasons you've stated.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

FWIW: Android != Linux

In a nutshell Android is a Linux based kernel w/ some power saving improvements (e.g, wakelocks for drivers) and that's pretty much where the similarities end.

So you mean that Android is Linux with improvements? You're right. Android >= Linux.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[gmhowell]

In a nutshell Android is a Linux based kernel w/ some power saving improvements

So, Android is Linux, then. Gotcha, glad that's clear. Nobody cares about your favorite userland libraries.

RMS gets pretty worked up about it.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[ArsonSmith]

Android != Unix user space clone
Android == Linux

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[dumuzi]

I don't contest that the system is screwed. I do contest that Google is innocent. Even this company that strives to do no evil falls into the same pattern as everyone else, as that is the only course of action that allows survival in todays market. There is indeed no chance in hell for us.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[interkin3tic]

That's why it should be significantly reformed (i.e., gutted).

But to prevent them from screwing it up worse than it was before, we would first need to have the industry lobbyists and executives themselves reformed (i.e., gutted).

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Android != Unix user space clone
Android == Linux

Ahem. It should be referred to as Android/Linux, thank you very much.

Sincerely,
RMS's mirror-universe double.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anthony Mouse]

Innovation requires more effort than genius. There are few "Ah-ha!" developments that come to people in the middle of the night in a dream. Patents are intended to create a profit incentive for people to put in the requisite effort, thereby encouraging innovation for the public good.

This is the key argument for why software patents need to be destroyed but other patents can sometimes be useful. Because with software, 2/3rds of the expense is testing the code and removing the bugs. Which means that if you aren't engaged in copyright infringement, all that testing has to be duplicated. On top of the cost of actually reimplementing whatever allegedly patentable ideas were put forth, which is larger in software than in other industries because reverse engineering is plodding work -- in many cases it's more expensive to copy than to do a novel implementation (e.g. samba needing to reverse engineer crappy SMB instead of just starting over with something cleaner).

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[phantomfive]

Wouldn't that "route-around" the distributor's infringing of said patents?

In short, no. You can try to get cute working around the logical edges of the law, but legal code isn't the same as source code. The judge can still decide you are infringing in spirit, even if you manage to find a legal loophole that looks good on paper.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Without a profit incentive, why should I spend years in my lab building a better solar panel, or heart valve, or internal combustion engine? As soon as my years of hard work pay off and I put my product on the market, countless other companies would be able to offer the same thing for only the cost of reverse engineering my product. I endured all the up-front development costs, yet I make the same profit as everyone else who starts selling it because I have to compete with everyone else. I'm a nice guy, but I'm not self-sacrificing.

The only problem with this is that you spend years trying to improve on existing technology is that the existing technology is mostly likely broadly covered by many patents. Your completion can prevent you for taking your improved product to market so there is no financial intensive to spend all those hard years of work developing the product. Your completion does not need to purchase your patent either because they don't need to compete with you.

The best course of action is to patent your idea, trying to make the patent as broad as possible, so that the patent office keeps knocking it back for 10 years, until it is finally approved, by which time everybody is already doing something similar because the ideas time had come and it was going to be invented sooner or later. At this time, you can do extremely well as a patent troll.

With out the patent system, you can make your improved product, keep the method secret until you launch, then let everybody else play catch up trying to copy it. Everybody can compete on trying to make the best product. Laws similar to copyright provide adequate protection against exact duplication.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[LordLucless]

Without a profit incentive, why should I spend years in my lab building a better solar panel, or heart valve, or internal combustion engine?

Why would you now? Your innovation was probably pre-empted by someone who just described the general process anyway, and never spent any time or money actually getting it working in practice. The USPTO hasn't required working prototypes for quite a while now. That's why you can find patents on perpetual motion machines that managed to circumlocute their way past the USPTO watchdogs.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[trevelyon]

Couldn't agree more. Scrap ALL patents and see how it really effects innovation after 10 years. Then if it is not helping you can always bring the system back or recreate a new one.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, humanity never invented anything before patents existed. Patents were the key to human development, before then people just sat around being lazy.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Patent system gutted. Oh I see, so lazy asses can wait for someone to spend all the time and money on testing and R&D, so that shortly after they deploy it everyone else gets it for free, free, free?

No way, if anything the patent system needs to be more restrictive with harsher penalties for patent violation. I'm talking indefinite patent longevity, why should it ever expire? In the US, I'm talking about federal mandates of no less than 10 million per instance of a patent violation. I'm also talking about stricter guidelines for getting a patent, so if the patent is a derivative of prior art, then it needs to be filed as a derivative or else the patent application should be void. In the US, I also mean broader searches for prior art by the US patent office.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[mwvdlee]

No. Patents were intended to encourage inventors publically disclosing their inventions for future use by others by giving them limited protection if they do.
Patents were intended to serve society primarily, not inventors. Patented ideas are meant to be copied, just not now but when the patent runs out.
The alternative to patents are copyright law, where an inventor doesn't disclose anything, gets more protection and society gets less information.
The problem is that patent law has eroded into some form of copyright-for-ideas instead of a short-term protection in exchange for disclosure.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

When Oh when is someone going to give apple the fucking they deserve or better still when is an american court going to do somethinmg that has not got a huge wedge of wonga in the back pocket via the back door as a back hander ie stick to the law and to fuck with the money ..

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, people actually believe that PR crap?
The actual reason is not that nice, however.
If I invent some new useful device, I either

1) keep everything secret, start a massive multinational company and become a multimillionaire until the end of my days (after which my children will, ad infinitum)
2) am enticed (because I'm an idiot) to publish the plans, design etc of my new device, and the patent office "makes sure" (hah) that no one but me makes that device (for a limited time). After the limited time (originally was limited to 1 year in Greece), everyone now knows how to make the device (because I told them) and I'm just another guy again.

So you see it's not to "reward" inventors but to retrieve the inventions from them.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[TheRaven64]

$15 to Microsoft and $15 to Apple for each Android device? Suddenly Android doesn't look like quite such a cheap option...

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[aaaaaaargh!]

overly broad patents owned by litigious corporations with deep pockets have created a fear among inventors or potential inventors that any new invention will be labeled as infringing by some corporation owning some broad patent.

The even worse problem is that this fear is justified.

Be it in software or hardware, an inventor nowadays has only two choices: Either you sell out your invention to one of the few big quasi-monopoly companies who hold large enough patent portfolios and bank accounts to defend themselves, or you have to make sure that you're not successful to stay under the radar of patent trolls.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[TheRaven64]

Because now you wouldn't be doing it in your garage. That kind of R&D effort will be confined to big companies who have cross-licensing agreements and so can pretend that the patent system doesn't exist among themselves.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[TheRaven64]

Mod parent up. There are some software patents that are actually worthy of patents. They demonstrate a deep understanding of a problem and a solution that very few people would be able to independently arrive at. RSA is a good example. There are also a lot of patents on hardware that are not. Take a look at a Dyson vacuum cleaner some time. It is covered by almost 200 patents. One, for example, is for rounding corners of tubes that air flows through to reduce turbulence. In the patent, it specifically states that this technique has been used in large industrial sites for decades, but apparently because the tubes are small it's now worth a patent.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[AliasMarlowe]

Innovation requires more effort than genius. There are few "Ah-ha!" developments that come to people in the middle of the night in a dream. Patents are intended to create a profit incentive for people to put in the requisite effort, thereby encouraging innovation for the public good.

At the moment, I have 30 issued US patents (sole inventor in some, joint inventor with my wife and/or other collaborators in others), and a few applications pending. They all involve physical apparatus, rather than pure method/process stuff. My own experience bears out your first point: that invention requires effort rather than genius. However, I'm not at all sure of your second point, below.

As soon as my years of hard work pay off and I put my product on the market, countless other companies would be able to offer the same thing for only the cost of reverse engineering my product.

The cost of reverse engineering a product is often just as high as the cost of inventing in the first place. Moreover, it costs the copier time to reverse engineer and set up production of the copy, and denies the copier the critical insights of why a product was made in a particular way. The knock-off is generally shoddy in comparison to the original, for this and other reasons. Also, since you'll presumably have a first-mover advantage, you'll get a good payoff from the high margin early-adopting customers, when there will be essentially no competition on price or quality.

Usually, the situation is that I have some problem to solve, and in forming the solution some novel method or device is created, or perhaps a few alternative solutions of varying merit are created. Clearly, these creations are useful, and we check carefully that they are novel. Their nonobviousness often relies on not knowing which problem is being addressed. Given a particular problem statement, many other engineers might have reached a similar solution. Often, it is recognizing the problem itself which leads to the invention. Lacking that critical step in the process, is it almost guaranteed that most copycats will be full of glitches and will not compete on performance, and those that perform adequately will be further delayed and will not compete on price.

We usually apply for patents on some of the alternative solutions we don't implement as well as those which we use, and on solutions to problems for which no product is planned. This creates uncertainty for competitors as they are not sure what exactly we're going to do (patent applications must be filed well before products are released). Do we patent every invention we implement in a product? No, of course not: we keep some as secrets, if it is judged very likely that the actual invention would not be reverse engineered, or that it would be too difficult to ascertain whether a competitor's product was infringing.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[nonicknameavailable]

Apple only wants Android dead and buried

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[MrMickS]

Jeez. If you are going to bash Apple for suing Samsung for copying the form of the iPad almost completely just using inferior materials then at least get what the legal action was about right. The suit was based on copyright, not on a patent on a device with rounded corners. Samsung have pretty much tried to make their devices look like iPhones/iPads and skin Android to make it look like iOS which was pretty dumb.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Kirth]

Oh yes, patents themselves need to stop. All of them.

We've got only one segment where patents even work as envisioned by the patent-system itself, and that is pharmaceuticals. Even so, exactly those pharmaceutical patents cause myriads of problems with healthcare (they're a big factor in the cost of healthcare-systems) and in third-world countries, they kill.

So there is really no macro-economic reason for patents to exist. They're just a rent for lawyers and patent offices, and a tool for corporate warfare for everyone else.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[oreaq]

The competitor can't just clone your product instantaneously. If you invent you get a couple of months head start over the competition. You then use the time it takes them to clone your product to innovate some more and your competition will always play catch up. If you seize to inovate you lose your edge.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[stiggle]

SpaceX aren't patenting any of their developments.
Why? Because to patent them they have to publish their designs and they don't want to give the competition (like China, Iran, etc) the designs to copy. If they don't patent then they keep the competitive edge.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[AmiMoJo]

Without a profit incentive, why should I spend years in my lab building a better solar panel, or heart valve, or internal combustion engine?

Even with patents the private sector is unwilling to invest in this kind of innovation. It is always down to government funded research and universities to do the real hard and risky work. Industry comes along later and turns it into a product, and then uses patents to try and prevent further development in the field.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Jerry Atrick]

The problem is that far too many now believe that patents exist to reward inventors. The absolute nonsense many patent supporters spout makes perfect sense if you start from that position, including the absolute disrespect for end users.

Large parts of the legal system and industry need to be forcibly reminded that rewarding inventors is the mechanism, not the purpose and if the mechanism is not working to further the real purpose, then it needs changing. In software that mechanism isn't just broken, it's unneeded.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[rtb61]

That ludicrous claim would only be valid if people buying an Android device believed they were buying an Apple device, this being the original intent of the law.

Clearly people were buying those device because the hardware outperformed the Apple hardware for the same price and the Android software was and is superior. So Apple intentionally distorted application of the law to prevent competition, using legal literal ambiguities.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Pecisk]

Full Bullcrap.

Your profit incentive IS product YOU SOLD FOR PROFIT. What is so hard to understand? One market cycle is *TWO* years aprox. In these two years, yeah, some copycats will spring up, but that's it. If you haven't get your profit level you dreamt about by then, surprise - you won't ever, because new stuff gets released and your gets replaced.

Don't like it? Well, that's life in capitalism *without* bandaid from goverment. Where you will go with your money? Right, NOWHERE. You will have to stay here and compete.

Bullocks. In the end all those called enterprise guys just wants guaranteed money without breaking a sweat.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would google sue? They are the mutherfukers stealing everyone's technology. Remember Android?

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[mwvdlee]

In software that mechanism isn't just broken, it's unneeded.

I disagree with the general notion that software should be unpatentable.

IMHO, there are software solutions that are truely novel and of sufficient complexity to warrant a patent.

All too often though, a software patent simply means "I thought of the problem first, now I own every solution to this problem"; they don't describe novel solutions but simply the same solution anybody would have found were they trying to solve the same problem. Overly broad patents describe problems, not solutions.

Also, in order for a patent to be useful (as in it's original intent; useful for society), it has to be copyable while the problem still requires solving in the way described in the patent. For software, this would mean that a software patent can last a few years at most.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[_8553454222834292266]

The patent system promotes innovation to society's benefit by ensuring that inventors reap the rewards of their efforts.

That's what's under debate here, don't go assuming it.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except if the patent system is crazy enough to bite their ass hard enough as well. We need more and greedier patent trolls.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't that simple. Suppose you hit a jackpot and manage to patent a serious game changing innovation. Okay, I guess it's only fair that you don't need to have any incentive developing it further, since you already did the big stuff and can take a rest. The real damage is that no-one else has either, so the whole new field you opened is effectively stuck for the next 17 years or so.

Of course, it isn't necessarily that bleak - you can license it to the other big players so that you end up hurting only the small folks, you know, like what you were before that bigtime hit.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're really grasping at straws here. I'd assume that you were another bonch sockpuppet if your UID weren't too low.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[scot4875]

The competitor can't just clone your product instantaneously.

And furthermore, if the competitor *can* clone the patented features of your product instantaneously, then your product's features probably don't deserve patent protection.

--Jeremy

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[scot4875]

Without a profit incentive

If profit is your only incentive, then maybe we'd rather you got the fuck out of the way and let people who are actually interested in the subject do the work.

--Jeremy

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[DinDaddy]

They are already paying Microsoft. Deals have been struck, contracts inked. MS is making mor money from Android than WP7, by most reports.

They have rejected Apple's offers so far.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[zeroshade]

This, this, holy fucking crap this!

I keep seeing people arguing about cloning products and whatnot, and I keep saying this exact thing. While people call those who don't like patents "entitled", I say it's them who feel they are entitled to own ideas, simply because they were given the problem first...

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey just lettin ya know, 'seize' means grab, 'cease' means stop. This one's free.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Coren22]

So, a design patent registered in Germany is now considered copyright?

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Physical patents EG. A special COG which operates more efficiently then the current one works well when a patent is applied. where the patent system fails miserably is in the 'virtual world' where a system or tech becomes the industry or standard which others must use in-order to operate or compete. Another area of patents which are equally as ridiculous is general purpose patents. I saw a show where some idiot had patented the use of wiring inside an article of clothing.....EPIC fail USA Epic FAIL.

Re:Paying Microsoft and Apple for Android ?

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Without a profit incentive, why should I spend years in my lab building a better solar panel, or heart valve, or internal combustion engine?

Why would you now? Your innovation was probably pre-empted by someone who just described the general process anyway, and never spent any time or money actually getting it working in practice. The USPTO hasn't required working prototypes for quite a while now. That's why you can find patents on perpetual motion machines that managed to circumlocute their way past the USPTO watchdogs.

Yeah, because those patents are all from the time since they also allowed software patents, not from the good old times when "working" prototypes trumped math.

So 5-15 to MS 5-15 to Apple, total $10-$30

[Anonymous Coward]

So 5-15 to MS 5-15 to Apple, total $10-$30

Definitely going to force things to be more expensive than either MS or Apple does.

Re:So 5-15 to MS 5-15 to Apple, total $10-$30

[masternerdguy]

Neither company can innovate so they are leeching off those than can. And we suffer.

Re:So 5-15 to MS 5-15 to Apple, total $10-$30

[Anonymous Coward]

What....wait a minute. Neither company as in Apple and Microsoft???

Microsoft has leeched for years off Apple. Google its todays Microsoft and they are leeching off Apple now. Get your story straight!! Google is stealing and now buying companies for their patents because Google can't innovate and create anything.

They are copying Apple, hopefully that is what you meant!!

Re:So 5-15 to MS 5-15 to Apple, total $10-$30

[masternerdguy]

no they arent copying apple. geez.

Re:So 5-15 to MS 5-15 to Apple, total $10-$30

[Anonymous Coward]

lol...butthurt fanboy rage!

Re:So 5-15 to MS 5-15 to Apple, total $10-$30

[__aaltlg1547]

What the hell does anybody Thule I'd wrong with buying companies for their patents?

Dear Apple...

[fatalGlory]

People buy your products because they are original, innovative and useful. Litigation for profit is not original. Litigation for profit is not innovative. Litigation for profit is not useful. Please, oh please, just get back to doing what people love you for.

Re:Dear Apple...

[Anonymous Coward]

As much as this is going to sound like a crazy conspiracy...

They're behind.
They've got the iPhone, and the iPad, but thats it. They haven't been working on the next thing, or aren't quite sure what to do now. So they're trying to buy time by slowing everyone else down.
</tinfoilhat>

Re:Dear Apple...

[theshowmecanuck]

Naw, this is just what happens when an Apple fanboy becomes a judge.

Re:Dear Apple...

[Anonymous Coward]

They've got the iPhone, and the iPad, but thats it.

Just ignore that every company on the planet would be more than happy with just that.

Re:Dear Apple...

[Anonymous Coward]

You could have said the same thing about either Nokia or RIM 5 years ago.

Re:Dear Apple...

[MrMickS]

People buy your products because they are original, innovative and useful. Litigation for profit is not original. Litigation for profit is not innovative. Litigation for profit is not useful. Please, oh please, just get back to doing what people love you for.

So if you conceed that Apple has made original and innovative products why should they let people copy them for free?

Re:Dear Apple...

[udoschuermann]

I'm afraid it may be too late for that already. All that Apple seems to have going for it right now is momentum, and a legal team to leech money from others who will increasingly out-innovate them. Wish it weren't so, but when I see companies shifting from innovation to litigation, I say the writing is on the wall.

Should turn Android over

[Anonymous Coward]

They should turn Android over to Apple...copying tards. While at it let Oracle have a piece as well for the stealing of Java code.

Re:Should turn Android over

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, there should only be one smartphone choice. All turn our lives over to The Apple

Between Apple and Microsoft

[JohnFen]

Between Apple and Microsoft, it's becoming impossible to own a smartphone without paying money to some truly awful corporation. I hope my current one won't have to be my last.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[fizzer06]

If you don't replace Android with Android and you hate Apple and Microsoft, what phone would you buy from?

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how google, which is essentially a company that turns it's profits from spying and building a profile of every detail of it's users is not evil.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[WankersRevenge]

I feel the same way about game consoles. But with smart phones and tablets, I think both Microsoft and Apple see the writing on the wall.

Just for the record, I'm an iOS dev. I've avoided Android devices pretty much because I wasn't interested in the OS. Well, recently, I've been expanding my skillset and started branching out. I picked up a Galaxy Tab for a learning / development machine. I didn't like it at first but it became a slow burn and I found myself really enjoying the os (I find the back button for applications to be a brilliant os concept).

While I still prefer the overall experience of an iPad, it's painfully obvious that the "tablet gap" (cue strangelove) is being closed. I can't see Apple staying on top much longer and I'm guessing with their litigation spree, neither can they. It's literally Apple versus the world and those aren't very good odds.

If both companies manage to get a chuck of every tablet phone sale, they kind of win in a very shady way. The real thing to do is get rid of software patents or limit them to an ultra small window (a year at most). I don't see that ever happening unless we somehow divorce money from politics, but that's a whole different issue.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[ozmanjusri]

Buy a cheap knock-off China phone. It's the only ethical choice.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[Daniel Phillips]

I find the back button for applications to be a brilliant os concept.

True. It is a sensible API that has a natural interpretation: return to the context from which the current context was invoked, whether that be another application, an earlier frame of the browser chain or whatever. Now the obvious: forward is equally natural and is blatantly not there in Android. How many times have I hit the "back", ending up back in the application list or somewhere, and have to go hunting around to get back into the application context I just left? Which by the way is still running by the "apps never exit" rule. So obviously what I really want is a forward button, right next the the back button as is right and proper. Whenever that makes sense of course. Note to Android devs: quick, implement this before troll Apple claims to own the patent.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't replace Android with Android and you hate Apple and Microsoft, what phone would you buy from?

webOS

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[bgat]

Hold down the Home key, and Android will present you with a list of running applications to choose from.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[crunch-banger]

Now that almost 50% of adults own smart phones I'm not sure we should call them smartphones anymore...

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[Daniel Phillips]

I know that. It is no substitute for the obviously missing "forward" button.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[fizzer06]

WebOS on a phone? I thought it was just on tablets.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

How about a BlackBerry? Their mobile browser is one of the best on the market and very often first with new features. They have historically good multitasking (lightyears ahead of Apple) and the best security on the market one else even comes close)

Their new OS is far more advanced than anything Apple or Google is likely to put out in the next year -- all with a slick UI that makes iOS look like Windows 2.0.

It's getting really hard to ignore RIM. Their products are just too damn good.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[Microlith]

And get hit by the GPL violation.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[0123456]

Now that almost 50% of adults own smart phones I'm not sure we should call them smartphones anymore...

The smart people have dumb phones or no phone at all. Only the dumb people need to update Facebook every five minutes.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

They get hit by the GPL violation if and only if you sue them.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

troll Apple

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[Xenx]

I have a Facebook widget on one of my side desktops on my phone, just in case a friend has something important to share. 95% of the time it is ignored. What IS the phone used for? Instant messaging, text messaging, email, I might occasionally receive a call. I can check my bank account, GPS navigation, or take pictures (if for some unknown reason I feel the need to). I also listen to a fair amount of music during my commute via streaming. All things that just wouldn't work as well from a laptop with a cell antenna.

Do I pay a premium for this functionality? Yes. Does it make me dumb? No.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

OH MY FUCKING GOD!111 Call the goddamned cops. You might have to watch...say it ain't so...a relevant ad. The fucking humanity of it all. Oh, almost forgot...you're a douchebag:)

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is a truly awful corporation. I'm sorry but they are not a single bit better than the other two. If giving your privacy up so a giant company can make ad revenue doesn't scare you... well...

All 3 are the same, evil, get over it.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

It has something to do with stinking

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[LordLucless]

It's probably because it's wasted real estate having a required "forward" button. The back button can be used at any time, as any time you arrived at a new screen, you came their from somewhere. A "forward" button, however, would be disabled for the vast majority of the time. The only time it would be enabled is just after you've pressed the back button, and before you've made any other selection.

I'll keep my phone without the mandatory dead-spot thank you.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[AndroSyn]

It's getting really hard to ignore RIM. Their products are just too damn good.

Mr Balsillie? Is that you?

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[Microlith]

And since you usually have no standing under the GPL and they're in China, you're pretty much fucked.

In other words, don't buy the cheap Chinese knockoff if you're concerned about legal matters.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[Daniel Phillips]

It's probably because it's wasted real estate having a required "forward" button.

No, it's not that, the line where the forward button should go is mostly empty. Speaking tablet here. Yes, in some cases origami might be required on a touch phone interface but the tablet interface must not suffer because of that.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[ozmanjusri]

Are you trolling?

The buyer is at no risk from GPL violations. THEY are the people the GPL was designed to protect.

Even the resellers are mostly using generic AOSP distros on the phones, while chipset vendors like Allwinner and MediaTek are genereally LESS precious than more established vendors when it comes to sharing code.

Can you link to any GPL violations?

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

A Maemo (N9/N900) or WebOS (Pre/Pixi/Veer) phone, probably. Although only N9 is currently produced, they are all available NOS on ebay etc.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[JohnFen]

From the choices on the market right now? A Blackberry, maybe. If not that, then I wouldn't get a smartphone at all. Smartphones are luxuries. For what I actually need, a feature phone is actually plenty fine.

Long run, I would hope that the smartphone market doesn't descend into a defacto monopoly and there would be some yet-to-be-seen alternative.

For certain, I won't be giving Apple or Microsoft a single thin dime.

Re:Between Apple and Microsoft

[JohnFen]

Google is not a 100% virtuous company by a longshot, but it's not evil overall. Google is honest with you about what it gathers and what it does with it. Google does not pull sneaky strong-arm tactics to try to trick you into giving it money.

But let's face it, any company that gets to be a certain size has dirty hands. That doesn't mean all hands are equally dirty. Apple & Microsoft have a long history of bad behavior, predating Google.

Can they sell OS free handsets?

[Anonymous Coward]

Develop both Android and Windows Phone drivers for them.
Let us choose what we install, just like on bare-bones PCs.
The devices ARE computers after all!
Shouldn't it be more difficult to charge a premium for an open-source operating system that the user has to manually download?

Re:Can they sell OS free handsets?

[Anonymous Coward]

And how would this avoid the patents?

Re:Can they sell OS free handsets?

[fizzer06]

Warez, dude!

Re:Can they sell OS free handsets?

[Em Adespoton]

What telco in their right mind would choose giving their customers choice over having to pay some license fees and passing on the cost to the customer in exchange for almost complete control of the hardware and softawre?

Re:Can they sell OS free handsets?

[God Of Atheism]

Probably none, but you could still buy the cellphone in a shop not linked to one telco.

As it is, the same is happening with prepaid sims. The telco shops refuse to sell it to you, but if you go to a shop selling from multiple providers they will happily sell it to you.

Apple becoming a patent troll?

[rvr777]

Why does Apple need to do this so badly? I understand that U$ 5 for every Motorola/Samsung Android phone/tablet is a hefty sum of money, but this hurts their image. specially for their customers, as it *could* be interpreted as having a difficult competing with Android. I'm very disappointed that they are going the same way as other patent trolls :(

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Trolan]

A patent troll is usually called that because they didn't produce anything using the patent in question aside from a lawsuit. Apple here is using patents they are actively using, and believe that are being infringed by Android. Considering Motorola is going for 2.5% of sale price of iPhones for use of standards patents covered by FRAND, this is at least a more reasonable figure. It's also quite possibly a means of leveraging a cross-licensing deal so neither side winds up paying the other a dime.

Ultimately, they're doing what most sane businesses would do. If you had a design you felt was innovative enough to patent and you spent a ton of R&D on, and you saw a company producing something that you believe is infringing on your ideas, would you just sit back and let them run with it? Or do you like doing free R&D for your competition?

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[exomondo]

Why does Apple need to do this so badly? I understand that U$ 5 for every Motorola/Samsung Android phone/tablet is a hefty sum of money, but this hurts their image. specially for their customers, as it *could* be interpreted as having a difficult competing with Android. I'm very disappointed that they are going the same way as other patent trolls :(

Well a 'patent troll' is an entity that just holds patents and sues people that actually use the without licensing them but doesn't actually use them themselves, just suing over use of patents isn't 'patent trolling', so Apple isn't a patent troll. And wrt hurting their image for their customers, if the conditions and incidents at the factories that build their products don't turn off their customers i hardly think suing their competitors for using their innovations (which is of course how they'll spin it regardless of your point of view) is going to.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[andydread]

So you endorse suing over software-patents then right? You are happy with Apple and Microsoft suing YOU for writing code right? Code that they did not write and have NOTHING to do with? So if one operating system has a menu bar can we patent that and sue every one to hell and back for implementing a menu bar in software with completely different code? Suing people for swipe to unlock and displaying text before an image in a browser is ok with you? So now you can't sit down at your computer and write code without an army of lawyers charging you a heap for the privilege to use your own fucking code?

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, Apple did sit back and let them run with it... Android has been out for some time now...

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[noh8rz2]

Except that android is a blatant rip of apple from when schmidt was on the board. Pretty cool when you're a board member and have access to source code.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Daniel Phillips]

Apple: If it walks, talks, growls and stinks like a troll, it's a troll.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[rvr777]

I agree with you about the definition about patent troll, I wanted to refer to the strategy of using the patents to hamper the innovation or squeeze some additional money from their competitors. About their image, most customers (sadly) don't care about the conditions and incidents at the factories, because it doesn't affect them; they want their device as cheap as possible, even if it means looking away from the company manufacturing practices. I hope more people would be concerned about this, but only a minority won't change anything.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

Source please. Demonstrate that it's a blatant rip off, specifically, as opposed to "obvious to those experienced in the art".

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Daniel Phillips]

[blather]... so Apple isn't a patent troll

Only according to Apple apologists, fanbois, and spin doctors. For the rest of us, Apple is burning karma at an alarming rate and has already declined significantly in terms of respect for the corporate brand. Apple is doing its best to establish a reputation for rapaciousness over engineering excellence.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[andydread]

You are saying that Schmidt stole IOS code and put it in Android? That is bullshit. Total Bullshit and you know it. Schmidt was not privy to any Iphone info while on the board and definitely did not have access to any Apple source code. Stop spreading misinformation.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that Android was bought by Google as an existing work in progress before Apple was even around the market, and all Google did was pump more money into it...

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[nwoolls]

Try Googling "Android before iPhone". Yes it existed. And it was a Blackberry clone. Only after the iPhone was released and a massive hit did they change course.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[exomondo]

Only according to Apple apologists, fanbois, and spin doctors.

Well given that i am none of those that disproves your theory, too bad for you. It also demonstrates that you ignorantly think that anyone that sues over patents is a 'patent troll', so you fail again.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[exomondo]

I agree with you about the definition about patent troll, I wanted to refer to the strategy of using the patents to hamper the innovation or squeeze some additional money from their competitors.

I know there's no real way to say 'they've made enough' off a particular innovation, but you'd think they wouldn't need to be squeezing that money out of their competitors given their market position and financial situation. In fact competing and doing so well in the market without suing your competitors would certainly make them look good, and only respond to patent lawsuits with cross-licensing agreements.

About their image, most customers (sadly) don't care about the conditions and incidents at the factories, because it doesn't affect them; they want their device as cheap as possible, even if it means looking away from the company manufacturing practices. I hope more people would be concerned about this, but only a minority won't change anything.

Agree.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[crazycheetah]

Get better sources.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Daniel Phillips]

Only according to Apple apologists, fanbois, and spin doctors.

Well given that i am none of those that disproves your theory...

Wrong, your words "suing over use of patents isn't 'patent trolling', so Apple isn't a patent troll" qualify you nicely under both "apologist" and "spin doctor". Never mind the blatant logical fallacy.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[exomondo]

Wrong, your words "suing over use of patents isn't 'patent trolling', so Apple isn't a patent troll" qualify you nicely under both "apologist" and "spin doctor".

Fail again douchebag, selective quoting won't save you, nice try though.

Never mind the blatant logical fallacy.

Selective quoting will do that to you.

But i'm curious, what's your definition of a 'patent troll'?

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

in your haste to brand someone an apple-lover of some kind it looks like you missed a pretty crucial bit

" just suing over use of patents isn't 'patent trolling', so Apple isn't a patent troll"

which is right. just because you bring a patent suit doesnt make you a patent "troll".

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[rjames13]

[blather]... so Apple isn't a patent troll

Only according to Apple apologists, fanbois, and spin doctors. For the rest of us, Apple is burning karma at an alarming rate and has already declined significantly in terms of respect for the corporate brand. Apple is doing its best to establish a reputation for rapaciousness over engineering excellence.

People only use the term "patent troll" in this context because they don't know what it means. They saw it used elsewhere and are so emotionally invested in what they are saying they don't check if it means what they think it does. Then other people misuse it as well and the cycle goes on.

Wikipedia has an ok definition of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[noh8rz2]

hey andydread or should I say android-head? if schmidt didn't get a DVD with the source code, how were they able to create android so quickly from scratch? how come so many of the features and API are the same word for word? and how come he used to be on the board, but was fired?

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Dhalka226]

If you had a design you felt was innovative enough to patent and you spent a ton of R&D on, and you saw a company producing something that you believe is infringing on your ideas, would you just sit back and let them run with it?

See, that is the flaw in your argument. You're supposing that any appreciable portion of patent law relates to something "innovative enough to patent" that somebody "spent a ton of R&D on." Especially as it pertains to companies the size of Apple or Microsoft.

There are a few such cases, to be sure. But the vast majority are incremental improvements slapped together, or something done for decades with "using a computer!" stuck on the back. There's no bar for innovation; every idea a company that size has ever had goes through the patent process because $10k to them is worth less than a sneeze. There are an estimated 250 million Android phones that have been activated[1], growing at a rate of about 700,000 per day. Let's ignore the existing install base (which Apple probably will not); at $5/device, they are asking for $3,500,000 per day. Do you see now why filing BS patents that took no thought and no effort at every turn in hopes that one hits the jackpot makes sense? $3.5MM can pay for 350 patent applications per day that never make a dime. (And you can be assured that many "make a dime," whether directly, as a patent bludgeon or simply as a boost to the company. Patents can be valuated and listed as a company asset on its balance sheets even if it is never licensed.)

Maybe this is one of the good patents that cost a billion dollars in R&D. I doubt it, but maybe. It still doesn't matter. The next one won't be, and there will be a next one.

And let's be honest here. There's no mobile patent worth $3.5 million per day.

[1] http://www.asymco.com/2011/12/21/how-many-android-phones-have-been-activated/

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

[blather]... so Apple isn't a patent troll

Only according to Apple apologists, fanbois, and spin doctors.

Actually it is according to the history of the term:

"make a lot of money off a patent that they are not practicing and have no intention of practicing and in most cases never practiced."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll

Such that there is more to being a patent troll that just suing another company/person over patents.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[andydread]

OK you are an obvious troll. I'm done here.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[noh8rz2]

sorry, i didn't realize that clearly articulated logical points were considered trolling,,, but maybe that's the new standard these days? is it easier to throw around ad-hominems than reply to straightforward assertions?

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Daniel Phillips]

"just suing over use of patents isn't 'patent trolling', so Apple isn't a patent troll" which is right.

No, it is a logical fallacy of the "does not follow" kind, perhaps the most rudimentary sort, sometimes not even dignified with the term "fallacy". Perhaps you need to refresh your knowledge.

just because you bring a patent suit doesnt make you a patent "troll".

Perhaps not, but being a patent troll like troll Apple does make you a troll, a big hairy stinking one.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Daniel Phillips]

Selective quoting will do that to you.

My quoting in no way changed the sense of your post. And would you please try to keep a civil tongue in your mouth. You might consider posting under your real name as well, if you have the courage.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[LordLucless]

I assert that you have your head up your ass. Please disprove.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[kermidge]

Apple, except perhaps in earliest days, has never seemed to really give a shit about their "image". They _buy_ their image. The lawyers, of course, don't give a damn, looking for any advantage and anyone with pockets, to harm, in service to their masters.

As for all this kind of crap, and the same crap from yesterday, and from tomorrow, a pox upon them and their offspring unto the tenth generation. Sorry, there's just not enough popcorn.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[exomondo]

My quoting in no way changed the sense of your post. And would you please try to keep a civil tongue in your mouth. You might consider posting under your real name as well, if you have the courage.

Your quoting missed the crucial part, either intentionally or just a failure at reading comprehension:
"just suing over use of patents isn't 'patent trolling', so Apple isn't a patent troll"

The reality is that i stated the fact that there is more to being a 'patent troll' than simply filing a patent suit, just doing that does not make anyone a 'patent troll'. Your responses confirm you either have no understanding whatsoever of the term 'patent troll' (especially given you have not responded with what you understand the definition to be) or that you initially failed at reading comprehension and now for some reason don't want to admit it.

But go ahead and detail exactly how noting such a fact would make me an 'apologist' or 'fanboi' or 'spin doctor' and what you believe such things to be, you're probably wrong given your obvious lack on understanding of the term 'patent troll'.
Also perhaps point out how there being more to being a 'patent troll' than just suing someone over patents is a logical fallacy, naturally omitting the 'just' from the beginning of the quoted passage may lead you to that conclusion, but that's your failure, not mine, the post is perfectly accurate.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is a logical fallacy of the "does not follow" kind, perhaps the most rudimentary sort, sometimes not even dignified with the term "fallacy".

it isn't since they are just suing over patents and they are not suing over patents that they do not use and/or have no intention of practicing they are not "patent trolls" by the very definition of the term. surely it cant be that hard to understand?

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is a troll, copied UI from xerox, Iphone from prada, built OSx on top of bsd. Back door with apple central so iphones and macs are useless for any classified work. Following in the footsteps of MS and charging the competition to destroy them. I will never buy an apple product, its a pc clone with bsd people. Just feels so right to over pay and give them power. Nothing inovated ipad = big iphone. What innovation has come from them, what has apple produced lately that is innovative besides in the 90s when they made better products (ipod which was the same as an mp3 player but classier), iphone = LG prada nock off. Now its just a massive corporation bent on global domination. I hate apple and what they stand for now, a big pile of dog sh*t road block to new creative companies like htc who allows you to download the kernel and modify it if you like for any of their phones.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Daniel Phillips]

You said, and I quote: "just suing over use of patents isn't 'patent trolling', so Apple isn't a patent troll." Which is a non sequitur, pure and simple, popularly known as a logical fallacy. First, your premise may well be false, but whether it is true or false, your purported conclusion does not follow from it. Your use of the word "just" in no way changes the sense of the perfectly simple English sentence you wrote, in spite of how you might want to spin that.

In any case, Apple is a dispicable organization that seems determined to become even more so.

By the way, it would seem that you lack courage,

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Daniel Phillips]

People only use the term "patent troll" in this context because they don't know what it means.

And you think you do? Here is a well reasoned discussion of the term. Apple would certainly qualify, even without stooping to this.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please, that BS osnews writeup has been proven false time and again.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Daniel Phillips]

[blather]... so Apple isn't a patent troll

Only according to Apple apologists, fanbois, and spin doctors. For the rest of us, Apple is burning karma at an alarming rate and has already declined significantly in terms of respect for the corporate brand. Apple is doing its best to establish a reputation for rapaciousness over engineering excellence.

Wow, it seems the usual pack of Apple astroturfers with mod points is around tonight.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Daniel Phillips]

You said, and I quote: "just suing over use of patents isn't 'patent trolling', so Apple isn't a patent troll." Which is a non sequitur, pure and simple, popularly known as a logical fallacy. First, your premise may well be false, but whether it is true or false, your purported conclusion does not follow from it. Your use of the word "just" in no way changes the sense of the perfectly simple English sentence you wrote, in spite of how you might want to spin that.

In any case, Apple is a dispicable organization that seems determined to become even more so.

By the way, it would seem that you lack courage,

As do your slimeball Apple astroturfer friends.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Daniel Phillips]

Only according to Apple apologists, fanbois, and spin doctors.

Well given that i am none of those that disproves your theory...

Wrong, your words "suing over use of patents isn't 'patent trolling', so Apple isn't a patent troll" qualify you nicely under both "apologist" and "spin doctor". Never mind the blatant logical fallacy.

Here are some links.

Message to Apple astrofurfers: the world will stop calling your company a dispicable troll when it stops being one. Trolling Slashdot just makes you appear more dispicable.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Daniel Phillips]

No wonder Apple's brand is slipping.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[exomondo]

You said, and I quote: "just suing over use of patents isn't 'patent trolling', so Apple isn't a patent troll." Which is a non sequitur, pure and simple, popularly known as a logical fallacy.

Rubbish, read the whole quote:
Well a 'patent troll' is an entity that just holds patents and sues people that actually use the without licensing them but doesn't actually use them themselves, just suing over use of patents isn't 'patent trolling', so Apple isn't a patent troll.

Given that Apple doesn't fit the description of a patent troll - as described in the first half of the sentence - the obvious and logical conclusion is that they are not a patent troll.

First, your premise may well be false, but whether it is true or false, your purported conclusion does not follow from it. Your use of the word "just" in no way changes the sense of the perfectly simple English sentence you wrote, in spite of how you might want to spin that.

And you only quoted half of because you either failed at reading comprehension or you have an irrational hatred that you seek to satisfy. The fact is they do not fit that definition, frivolous litigators? I believe so. Exploiting lack of labour regulation in overseas countries? Again, yes i would say so, especially since they make so much profit on their devices.

In any case, Apple is a dispicable organization [macgasm.net] that seems determined to become even more so

I wouldn't argue with that, their working conditions seem terrible particularly given the profits they make and they continue with ridiculously frivolous lawsuits like the one against samsung regarding design patents, but the fact is that they are not a patent troll and do not fit the definition of such, but of course you can't comprehend that because you don't know what a patent troll is.

By the way, it would seem that you lack courage

Speaking of non-sequitur, you using the name Daniel Phillips does not in any way shape or form mean that is your real name.

I'm not about to say Apple are great, they are far from it and most certainly should be leading the industry given their market position, many of their lawsuits appear frivolous and anti-competitive but I'm also not going to say they are a patent troll because that is factually false. You however don't seem to care about facts, you just want to call apple any name you possibly can.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[exomondo]

As do your slimeball Apple astroturfer friends.

lol...please stop embarrassing yourself, you look like more of an idiot with every post. I think Apple are anti-competitive, frivolous litigants but of course you don't want to hear that, all you want to hear is that they are patent trolls and that will help you sleep at night...pathetic.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[rjames13]

I'm sorry but the concept of patent troll existed before Android.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Anonymous Coward]

...
And wrt hurting their image for their customers, if the conditions and incidents at the factories that build their products don't turn off their customers ...

First, I have a basic LG flip phone not and not any sort of smart phone. Having said that...

Please give clear examples of mobile phones that were not made in the same types of factories as the iPhone. Apple being a large company does become a target for people with an agenda and therefore you may not realize which and how many other companies do the same thing.

And yes, I'm really interested in which companies have "good" factories as my phone is starting to show signs of age. I tend to keep a phone for 4 or 5 years before upgrading it.

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[EvilBudMan]

Agreed head up ass. Vote!@!

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[andydread]

Please, that BS osnews writeup has been proven false time and again.

[Citation Needed]

Re:Apple becoming a patent troll?

[Bing Tsher E]

Wow, it seems the usual pack of Apple astroturfers with mod points is around tonight.

You are on apple.slashdot.org, not the regular slashdot.org. It was really a shame when they created the new subdomain. It somewhat contains the astroturfing, but it also encourages it.

The more I see Apple playing patent troll...

[BulletMagnet]

The more I wish Gates would have pissed on Jobs back in 1997........

Re:The more I see Apple playing patent troll...

[ClosedEyesSeeing]

The more I wish Gates would have pissed on Jobs back in 1997........

That was in the other Pirates of Silicon Valley movie.

Re:The more I see Apple playing patent troll...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on. I dislike the iPhone as much as the next Android user but you cannot deny that iOS made Android better. Without the iPhone Android would be another blackberry clone

Re:The more I see Apple playing patent troll...

[Anonymous Coward]

Android would not be another Blackberry clone. Android was on a basic path, and it has continued that same path--which, if anything, is more of a Palm OS clone with pieces of Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and other phone OSs (including "dumbphones"...) combined with a bunch of new ideas. They learned from Apple in ways to make it better (and the touchscreen was not one of them... people, including Android, was starting to demo touchscreen use on phones before the iPhone was around at all), and Apple also learned from Android in ways to make iOS better. Neither would probably be what they are at their latest iterations without each other, but both also have completely distinct differences from anything that was before them.

Re:The more I see Apple playing patent troll...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure I've ever seen denial that blatant before.

Re:The more I see Apple playing patent troll...

[domatic]

http://www.osnews.com/story/25264/Did_Android_Really_Look_Like_BlackBerry_Before_the_iPhone_

The meme that Apple invented all that is touchscreen and froody needs to die. The reality is Apple is doing what Apple always does: makes some slickly packaged incremental improvements to the innovations of others then screams they invented it all.

Re:The more I see Apple playing patent troll...

[gl4ss]

nothing wrong with being just another bb clone - but one where you can switch everything without sucking RIM's cock.

Re:The more I see Apple playing patent troll...

[jareth-0205]

Not sure I've ever seen denial that blatant before.

Of course you could put your fingers in your ears and believe what you want to believe, or you could look at some of the early previews and see for yourself that your claim is bullshit.

http://www.osnews.com/story/25264/Did_Android_Really_Look_Like_BlackBerry_Before_the_iPhone_

Corporate Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

In the end, all the big corporations will end up paying each other royalties for all their patents. In essence, its a zero-sum loss because they get all their money back from different patents. This means any up and coming company will be sued out of existence if they don't have any patents to litigate with.

Re:Corporate Monopoly

[Anonymous Coward]

Blame IBM for this one. IBM is the company that popularized this tactic and they've benefits more than anyone else from it. It is well known in the patent industry where this tactic was refined to an art.

Re:Corporate Monopoly

[iiiears]

In the end, all big corporations will limit how their competitors can innovate.

Re:Corporate Monopoly

[0123456]

In the end, all big corporations will limit how their competitors can innovate.

Only so long as it has big government to give it a monopoly.

Typical /. response

[Anonymous Coward]

Android fanboys in denial till the end. Good that Apple is beginning to drop the hammer on iPhone clones. You lose all credibility when you play the "bad for consumers" nonsense.

Owned 4 ipods, 3 iphones

[AbRASiON]

Going from disliking, to hating, to detesting fucking Apple.
This company disgusts me, they need to be seriously dropped several pegs.

Never buying another Apple product, ever - working on convincing others, simply not interested in their shit and their attitude.

Re:Owned 4 ipods, 3 iphones

[Anonymous Coward]

How many did you buy new?

If someone that didn't like a company bought SEVEN of their products, I find that a little disconcerting.

There was another AC saying "I hate Apple, I'm going to sell my iPod." That's somewhat self defeating. You stop using their product.... by pushing your market share on to somebody else. Perpetuating the brand. Voting with your wallet has a price. Man up and pay it, or don't.

Re:Owned 4 ipods, 3 iphones

[axlr8or]

Why waste good press. I say he burns them in the middle of a pentagram. Puts it on youtube.

Re:Owned 4 ipods, 3 iphones

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is a corporation. If you 'like' any corporations, then you are staggeringly deluded about the way the world works. Corporations are your enemies. They are not your friends. No single corporation, no matter how much you think you like them, is your friend. Calling them enemies isn't even the right word, since they are completely amoral entities which function more like wild animals than people.

I recommend you decide what you want want in your life... What *tangible* things you want... And figure out how to get there. Boycotting apple is as pointless as boycotting toilets. Use real, measurable qualities to make decisions about what you want in your life, such as device features, quality, price, ecosystem integration, etc. and forget about your deluded idealism. Spend your time with your family instead. You will be happier, and the world outside your bubble will be exactly the same.

Re:Owned 4 ipods, 3 iphones

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool story bro. Now tell us about how that hot girl looks exactly like your ex.

That's it. I'm selling my iPod.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple needs to follow its great leader and die.

Re:That's it. I'm selling my iPod.

[Skapare]

Better yet, crush it, or even shoot it. Put the video proof online.

Photo of phones before and after iphone

[goombah99]

Everyone who whines about the design and interface patents that Apple is enforcing needs to look at this photo of "smart" phones before and after the iphone introduction:
http://boingboing.net/2012/02/24/photo-of-phones-before-and-aft.html

Now yes people may have had the odd feature that kinda sort looked like an iphone or worked a little like an iphone. but Seriously are you going to argue that apple did not set the standard as it were. Don't you think they have a right to profit from taking that risk, developing thier human interfaces over decades and applying those to the iphone to create such a seamless interface. If not then why did everyone copy it?

Re:Photo of phones before and after iphone

[Anonymous Coward]

Your picture is complete bullshit. How about pick phones that are actually a realistic example for the before and after? No, you can't do that, because it would completely destroy your point.

1. WAY too many dumb phones on there, which is completely irrelevant
2. Complete lack of the many phones that should be on the "before" image that actually look really damn similar to the phones on the "after" image.
3. It's fucking easy to make these pictures with a ridiculous bias, and this picture screams bias like a mother fucker.

Re:Photo of phones before and after iphone

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahem

Re:Photo of phones before and after iphone

[SuperAlgae]

A picture is worth a thousand words, but unfortunately there is no guarantee that those words are truthful.

Motorola had a very iPhone-like device (even with an app store) in 2006 before the iPhone was released...
http://www.quora.com/Why-was-Motorola-unable-to-capitalize-on-their-EZX-MotoMAGX-smartphone-platform-outside-of-China

Motorola hurt themselves with some bad decisions, but Apple did not single-handedly invent the modern smartphone. And I'm sure there are similar examples from other companies at the time. The fact that Apple executed better than their competitors has given them plenty of deserved success. It does not give them the right to hold a monopoly over the industry.

Re:Photo of phones before and after iphone

[Anonymous Coward]

ya, you've got a nokia 8900 in that photo. i had that
phone in 1998.

Re:Photo of phones before and after iphone

[Skapare]

Touch screens replacing physical buttons is a whole LOT older than even this. I first saw them in use in other devices in 1989. Any patents from back then are run out now.

Re:Photo of phones before and after iphone

[SuperAlgae]

Thank you. That is an even closer match than my Motorola example. Together they show a natural progression towards modern smartphones, not something spawned by Apple out of the aether.

Re:Photo of phones before and after iphone

[jrumney]

So on one side, a complete mish mash of phones on the market before the iPhone, all different colors, shapes and sizes. Oh, and among them, top center, is a phone which apparently was the inspiration for the iPhone (possibly the LG Prada, but at that resolution it's difficult to tell). And on the other side, you have a careful selection of phones that look somewhat similar to the iPhone, which were launched after it. If I go down to my local phone store, I still see phones with keyboards, phones in various colors other than black, and even non-smartphones, so your picture is obviously biased towards making a point.

Re:Photo of phones before and after iphone

[walterbyrd]

Ever see the Star7 demo on youtube? The Star7 was a handheld wireless device developed in 1991/1992. It had a touchscreen, played sound files, had color icons, and even kinetic scrolling, among many other features.

Re:Photo of phones before and after iphone

[Anonymous Coward]

http://lawpundit.blogspot.com/2011/08/who-copied-from-whom-sony-ericsson-p800.html

(Yes, I'm one of the original developers of the P800. We just smiled when the iPhone was introduced)

Re:Photo of phones before and after iphone

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Yeah, one phone that looks similar to the iPhone, where the first pictures were leaked three weeks before the iPhone was announced, but was actually announced later, proofs beyond a shadow of a doubt that all phones before looked like the iPhone.

But maybe your point is that the newer phones were all inspired by the not quite so successful Prada phone and not the iPhone - but why do most of them have no slider keyboard then?

Re:Photo of phones before and after iphone

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

Yeah, feature phones are the future of smart phones - the success of Androids used like feature phones don't lie.

unfortunate events surround us

[Anonymous Coward]

When you have that much cash, it's pretty easy to bribe people. We the people should have the ultimate say for anything that affects a majority of us, it's unfortunate that democracy is an illusion in the US. Law wich is pretty much in the pockets of companies always has the last say, never mind if it's immoral, a low blow tactic, out of greed. It really mocks us all. Can you really blame them though? i mean I hate apple, but if they came up to someone and said hey, here's a cool million to keep your mouth shut and do as I say, do you really think they're gonna say no? or if they are too incompetent to understand, that they will be smart enough to make the correct judgement?

Apple and Google pay Microsoft Exchange licenses

[jmcbain]

Microsoft has a product that you may have heard of. It's called Exchange. Both Apple and Google pay a licensing fee to Microsoft to use Exchange ActiveSync. It mutually benefits all sides (seller and buyer). Now Apple has products that you may have heard of. They're called iOS patents, which are a proxy for the iOS features. Google and its minions should pay a licensing fee to use them. That is how capitalism works. If you think that's crazy, then I know where you stand, comrade.

I hate crapple.

[axlr8or]

So, with its endless war chest of digitized dead presidents, Crapple pursues the intent of A. Ruining the ability to have a choice, and B. Patent Trolling. RIP Steve, and thanks for GMOing a tree that grows great looking apples that are just plain rotten on the inside. You know what? That Judge didn't fall far from the tree, either.

Fuck Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously.

Re:Fuck Apple

[Skapare]

Sorry, but they already have the patent on that.

Re:Fuck Apple

[Arcady13]

Okay. In the stem or in the bite hole?

Going both ways...

[Anonymous Coward]

So how many of you think that Motorola is getting zero dollars from each iPhone sold? The real question is... how much are they getting.

Re:Going both ways...

[Fuzi719]

If I were Google/Motorola, I would now say "F**K FRAND, those patents will now cost Apple 25% of each device's selling price." It's thermonuclear war time, folks! "Would you like to play a game?"

Re:Going both ways...

[HarrySquatter]

Yes, and you would be making an extremely stupid move as you would get slapped down so fast by the courts for doing so. Motorola and Samsung were both already struck down for trying to play games with FRAND patents.

Jordan 4 superman jordan retro 4

[Anonymous Coward]

I amjordan retro 3 jordan retro 4 Jordan 4 superman glad that your article will be of great help to solve my problem, thank youJordan retro 1 air jordan 1 air jordan 3

WTF!? How is Google abusing it's patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is Google assuring fair licencing a case of Google abusing it's patents? Especially considering the enormous abuse that Google has suffered from scam outfits like Microsoft and Apple.

Can *you* deny that Apple did not borrow ideas?

[walterbyrd]

Jobs was notorious for stealing the ideas of others.

If Android is a "stolen product," then so was the iPhone
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/02/if-android-is-a-stolen-product-then-so-was-the-iphone.ars

What about all the technology that Apple stole?

[walterbyrd]

Or are you in denial about that?

Motorola invented real technology

[walterbyrd]

Apple is suing over "inventions" like rounded corners, and slide-to-unlock - and a slew of other "inventions" that are actually prior art, or laughably trivial.

Re:Motorola invented real technology

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is suing over "inventions" like rounded corners, and slide-to-unlock - and a slew of other "inventions" that are actually prior art, or laughably trivial.

So Moto should have no problem designing phones without them, correct?

Only solution is to boycott Apple

[walterbyrd]

I will be glad to go first.

Apple may have some nice products, but there is nothing I can't live without. Unlike MS, few people are locked-in to Apple.

I suppose Apple will still make a small amount off it's junk patents. But, that only until Apple gets sued back in some serious way. Really, how much of Apple's bullshit do you think other companies are going to take, before they take some action back?

Re:Only solution is to boycott Apple

[Truedat]

Just wondering which honest and venerable businesses you will be supporting as an alternative.

Re:Only solution is to boycott Apple

[whisper_jeff]

Really, how much of Apple's bullshit do you think other companies are going to take, before they take some action back?

This comes _AFTER_ companies like Motorola demanded 2.25% for industry essential FRAND patents from Apple. Did you call for a boycott of Motorola for blatant and disgusting abuse of the patent system? Did you ask "how much of Motorola's bullshit are companies going to take before they take some action back?" No. Of course not.

Seriously, pull your head out of the sand. Look around and see things as they really are.

Re:Only solution is to boycott Apple

[MrMickS]

I will be glad to go first.

Apple may have some nice products, but there is nothing I can't live without. Unlike MS, few people are locked-in to Apple.

I suppose Apple will still make a small amount off it's junk patents. But, that only until Apple gets sued back in some serious way. Really, how much of Apple's bullshit do you think other companies are going to take, before they take some action back?

How is this insightful? Its full of the same misguided claptrap that permiates slashdot and pretty much every tech forum. The discussion, if you can call it that, has descended to the level of an early Hollywoodland black and white movie. There is no attempt to actually look into the issues, in fact there is no need. Apple and Microsoft are the good guys, Google and any Android manufacturer are the good guys. The merits of any individual measure are immaterial. /rant

If its so much bullshit can you please explain why the judge has ruled in the way that they have? That Motorola and Google have to provide information to Apple. If you can do so in a manner that does imply, infer, or state that the judge is a fanboi or on Apple's payroll that would be a benefit. Perhaps that post might be insightful.

I remember when things got discussed on Slashdot. Sadly that was a long time ago.

Re:Only solution is to boycott Apple

[_8553454222834292266]

If its so much bullshit can you please explain why the judge has ruled in the way that they have?

Because it's a judge, it has to rule based on law. People are mad at the entire system and want the laws changed or eliminated. Don't see how what the judge does or does not think would really matter to someone who takes issue with the current patent system.

People seem to be focusing on Apple because they're in the news a lot and they're going after companies people don't hate such as Google. Other patent stuff doesn't seem to get as much negative publicity.

Re:Only solution is to boycott Apple

[walterbyrd]

Anybody. Apple is the world-champion most scummy company in existance, even surpassing Microsoft, and that's saying someting.

For desktop/laptop, some people may be stuck with Microsoft (enjoy the Win8 abomination that will be formced on you), but for phones and tablets, any android maker is far better than apple.

Re:Only solution is to boycott Apple

[EvilBudMan]

Not long bro and I don't see this on the news and it is very important. Apple will go down to Android. They don't have the patents of Google and Motorola. I think Motorola has the vacumn tube one. Just wait for the cross licensing. It means nothing at all for Apple.

Re:Only solution is to boycott Apple

[Truedat]

Anybody

any android maker is far better than apple

And yet still you won't commit.

Microsoft? Sony? Verizon? Amazon? Samsung? Google???

I'm asking because if you want to set an example for us to follow, then convince us that we aren't being fucked just as hard with sharp business practices, privacy violations and "Foxconn inside". You know, all that bullshit that you said you were concerned about.

This is not the end of it, far from it

[walterbyrd]

We can expect MS and Apple to keep churning out junk patents, and to keep forcing other companies to pay for their bogus "inventions."

I thought Java was F/OSS?

[walterbyrd]

Small wonder Oracle is getting their ass handed to them in court. Serves them right.

Corporations Are People Problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when do corporations have dreams? The people with those dreams at corporations are more than not, are not the benefactors of those patents. Even worse, a lot of those patents are end up in the control of patent trolls, while its creator is often long gone or has laid off from the the original company and receives no benefit whatsoever. Case in point. I used to work for epicRealm and all its IP was bought by a troll and no employees will ever profit from it.

Whoosh!

[jamrock]

People buy your products because they are original, innovative and useful. Litigation for profit is not original. Litigation for profit is not innovative. Litigation for profit is not useful.

You and so many others here just don't get it. Apple isn't interested in making money off Android. They want to kill it. The revenues from potential patent licenses, while nice, would be a rounding error on their P and L. Microsoft's motive may be partly for the profit (it's likely that their revenue from licensing patents to Android manufacturers exceeds their revenues from Windows Phone), but Apple is most assuredly not interested. Apple's motive is to chill Android's ascent, or preferably, kill the platform outright. There is apparently genuine anger inside Apple that is directed at Google because of Android; Apple feels that Google blatantly capitalized on Apple's hard work in birthing the iPhone and they're prepared to go to the mattresses to right the perceived wrong.

By making Android handsets more expensive to produce, Apple and Microsoft are adding friction to the adoption of Android, and both companies have large war chests they can use to open more fronts in their war against Google, the true enemy of both. Companies contemplating using Android will think twice before facing the two titans.

Re:Whoosh!

[Daniel Phillips]

Apple isn't interested in making money off Android. They want to kill it.

Oh, everybody gets that. If only because Steve Jobs literally stated it before he, ahem, died. Well, that karma thing you know.

Re:Whoosh!

[dch24]

Wish I could mod you +1 Insightful right now.

Who wants to be my FRAND?

[oxdas]

The big loser here seems to be standards. If Apple and Microsoft can extort large amounts of money for essentially fringe patents, what incentives do companies like Motorola and Samsung have to join their core technology patents to standards? This wasn't a big deal when it was just a few patent trolls, but the game has changed. The reason companies like standards and patent pools is to mitigate risk, especially legal risk. If standards no longer encourage everyone to play nice, then I fear for a more fragmented system, where tech moves slowly because everyone is developing against each other instead of with each other. But we now live in a world where a bouncing screen effect is worth billions, but the hardware implementations it runs on are worth much less.

Patents

[Taco Cowboy]

As one who owns 3 patents here is my humble opinion:

It has passed time that the patent system be gutted

The patent system was set up to encourage innovation, but the effect in recent years has been exactly the opposite

To come up with innovative ideas isn't hard - trust me, my 3 patents testify to that - but to make sure that no megacorp gets rich with your innovative ideas without paying is just too damn crazy --- I had to pay 3 big law firms to carry out separate international patent searches in order to make sure that *MY* innovative ideas were original

Why 3 law firms instead of one? Because I just do not have the deep pockets of the megacorps and I do not want to end up letting the patent trolls profiting from *MY* ideas

If the patent system is gutted today, I will not lose even one minute of sleep - sure I'll lose some $$$ but compare to the loss of those patent trolls, my lose is insignificant

As per why I patent those ideas in the first place? Well, if I don't, then some mofos hired by those patent trolls will eventually patent them to make even more megabucks

True, I do charge for those who are using my patents, but only for pennies per device, depending on volume

Why was this post modded as trolling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod abuse?

Ideas don't just pop up in the middle-of-the-night

[Taco Cowboy]

I think patents should be eradicated outright, screw reform. Geniuses aren't special

Innovation requires more effort than genius. There are few "Ah-ha!" developments that come to people in the middle of the night in a dream

I can only speak for myself - none of my 3 patents came from the "Ah-ha!" moment in the middle of the night, nor did they come in my dream (day or night)

Enlightenment just do not pop-up in the middle of the night, not for me, at least

Fuck apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple needs to be SHUTDOWN now and forever. Same for every company that claims ip rights.

And a picture of 100 blackbirds and one black swan

[Anonymous Coward]

And a picture of 100 ducks and one black swan proves that not all swans are white. The existence of a thousand other bird species matters not a jot.

In this case, the point is that the Apple's "patent" of "black phone" was not new and innovative. That you can still get non black phones matters not a jot. The point is that many phones made that "invention". Many before the Apple product appeared (hence designed to manufacture even earlier).

Is that all?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd gladly pay an extra $15 per device just so we all could continue to have a choice (Windows Mobile is not a choice), and so I didn't have to use iOS.

"Innovation" in operation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a good ole fashioned "fishing expedition" looking for the next generation of apple "innovations". A new motto for the times, "Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue."

Re:"Innovation" in operation?

[walterbyrd]

To be fair, I think Apple can do both - innovate, and sue.

The return on investment is just too great for Apple to ignore. These lawsuits make Apple tons of money. What does it cost to file a junk patent? $50K? The return on investment is off the scale. Expect to see lots more companies emulating Apple's new business model.

Re:"Innovation" in operation?

[Emetophobe]

To be fair, I think Apple can do both - innovate, and sue.

Apple has been copying features and playing catch up for a while. Here are some features Android had before iPhone, that Apple later implemented:

-Multitasking
-Drop-down notification bar
-Using apps from the lock screen
-Front facing camera
-Over the air updates
-Wireless syncing
-Customizable wallpapers

I see nothing wrong with Apple copying those features since they're obvious and shouldn't be patentable. The problem is Apple implements those features and calls it innovating, but when other companies do the same thing Apple sues. It's a double standard.

Motorola wants fair treatment for real technology

[walterbyrd]

I don't think FRAND means that you have give away your technology for free. Why even have a patent if that's the case?

Motorola invents real technology. Apple files junks patents, and then files nuisance lawsuit to keep competition off the market.

NO! That is not all. Not by a long shot

[walterbyrd]

This is a gold mine for Apple, Apple will never stop.

Apple just filed another bogus lawsuit against Samsung in Korea. It's over another three bogus patents.

Be certain, Apple will file lawsuits continuously. Not to protect Apple junk IP, but because it's good for Apple's busienss.

Creativity and hard work are not always inventions

[Rob Y.]

Just because something's useful or was hard to come up with, doesn't mean it's an invention worthy of patent protection. I'm sure fashion designers work very hard and are quite brilliant at what they do. But they're not inventors.

Most of the cellphone UI patents that are gumming up the works are patents on metaphors used in a touch screen UI. 'Slide to unlock' is a metaphor for a slider switch implemented on a touch screen. It is not an invention - it's 'inventiveness' has nothing to do with how it's implemented. It's a simulation of a real-world device on a touch screen. The same could be said for scroll 'bounce'. It's a simulation of what happens when a display on a physical device is scrolled past it's physical end. It's clever to use this metaphor to enhance the UI experience, but it's not an invention.

And don't get me started on FAT32 long filenames. A bugfix masquerading as an invention, which is only even useful because a certain monopoly desktop OS requires it for plug-in devices to work. Inventive? Maybe. But mostly an 'inventive' way to extract monopoly tolls on every device designed to plug into a computer. Whether this is patentable or not, charging royalties for the ability to work with a Windows PC shouldn't be allowed under antitrust law.

Re:Motorola wants fair treatment for real technolo

[whisper_jeff]

FRAND means you _MUST_ license the patent to ANYONE at a FAIR AND REASONABLE, NON-DISCRIMINATORY rate. 2.25% is not _reasonable_ and I doubt Motorola charges that same rate to other companies which means they are discriminating. Look, it's simple - Motorola (and Samsung) are abusing FRAND patents. Pure and simple. Stop ignoring what's going on just because you don't like Apple.

Patent reform

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems simple to fix the problems with the patent system. Here is a basic example. Maybe these things exist, but need to be overhauled.

If you haven't created a prototype in X years, patent expires.
If you haven't brought a product to market in Y years, patent expires.
If you have earned 90% of standardized (by companies and patent office) costs of R&D for patented product.
If Z years have passed, patent expires.

For software, I think X, Y, and Z should be 0.5, 1.5, and 10. For a cancer treatment, the values could be 2, 5, and 15. For a rocket ship, the values could be 5, 10, and 25 years. These standards could also be developed by companies and the patent office.

One final rule would be to simply consider the moral hazard, and make laws that mitigate this. For example, if you sue someone for patent infringement and lose, you must pay the litigation costs of the defendant (person you sued). Defendant does not pay prosecution costs if they lose.