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Motorola Scores Patent Wins Over Microsoft, Apple
tlhIngan writes "This week is Motorola's lucky week; they've won twice in two separate patent suits. First, an ITC judge has ruled that Microsoft's Xbox 360 has violated 4 of 5 patents related to h.264. This is just a preliminary ruling (PDF) and both Microsoft and Motorola will face an ITC panel later this year. In the other case, the ITC judge has ruled Apple violates a 3G patent, one that a German court ruled that Apple didn't violate earlier this year. "
And by reform, I mean, abolition?
Come on guys. It never works. The only people getting rich off it are the lawyers. The rest of the world is laughing at us over it.
Let's put those dollars towards creating jobs and innovating.
Hello, Obama? Anyone home? There's a campaign donation in it for you from a few big tech luminaries, I'm pretty sure.
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Then the patent is invalid.
The world is ill-served by "imaginary Property"..
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
...violated 4 of 5 patents related to h.264
So this is the next standard for video on the web they're talking about?
Note: This is Motorola Mobility, which ultimately means Google.
Breakfast served all day!
Given Microsoft's bullying of Android - an area where they don't even compete - I'm quite happy to see them coming out on the short-end of this stick. When I buy Android it's in part because I don't want to give my money to Microsoft or Apple. Now let's see a good strong Apple defeat such that Motorola (and other Android vendors) resolve these issues through cross-licensing instead of money.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Isn't it interesting how the tech industry is increasingly about patents?
Not really. Technology requires an investment to develop. Once that development is done, it's easy to replicate just by observing the final product. For some reason people around here really don't understand that. I suspect sensationalist headline poisoning.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
So Microsoft and Apple both wanted to screw up web video by only supporting the heavily patented H.264 standard instead of Google's open Web-M standard. So Google went and bought Motorola Mobility and is now throwing their own patent strategy back at them. If they claim H.264 isn't patentable than they lose that way otherwise Google can charge huge royalties and make them pay for being so greedy.
Brilliant chess moves as usual by the Google team.
"In the other case, the ITC judge has ruled Apple violates a 3G patent, one that a German court ruled that Apple didn't violate earlier this year." The courts aren't an ass it's just where they keep their heads. How can anyone hope to abide by copyright rules when even the courts can't sort out the mess!
And so began the great Worldwide Patent War of 2012.
Motorola launched and scored a hit with their patent.
Apple and Microsoft panic and fire off their arsenal of patents. Facebook, Samsung, Google, IBM, etc. all get pulled into it.
Yahoo! takes the opportunity to launch a sneak attack at Facebook. The patent scores a critical hit with the assistance of a clueless judge setting a new precedent.
Patent trolls rejoice at this and proceed to crawl out of the woodwork to start flinging their own patents around...
The MPAA/RIAA become jealous that there is all these lawsuits going around and they aren't getting a piece of the action. So they sue all of the above companies for lost sales, since all the money they're spending on lawsuits would have been used to license music/movies through them.
OK. Here's how software patents work.
There are hundreds of thousands of them. None of them required any investment to develop. They simply memorialize things that everyone always did - commenting inside of curly braces, using tables for compression, having the "AM" flip to "PM" when you scroll the hours past noon, having plugins in web browsers and "one click purchase buttons" and so forth.
No one can ever know what their work infringes on. Not even Microsoft or Google, who have carte blance budgets for such things. They simply write code and wait to get sued.
Even if the software patent fairy came down and waved her little magic wand, and you could know exactly which hundreds or thousands of patents you infringed, it would be worthless by tomorrow. Thousands of new patents are filed every day.
The only effect that software patents can have is to make every piece of code a ticking patent time bomb.
The scam was supported by a few, like Microsoft, because they saw it as a way to prevent competition and hurt free markets. They need only send part of their multi-million dollar legal team to the patent mines and amass a "war chest" that would enable them to sue others, and countersue when they were, themselves, inevitably brought to court. This would have the effect of making it impossible for anyone to write software without having a multi-million (these days multi-billion) investment in patent lawyers.
The only reason the U.S. has a functioning software industry is that the practice of using these patents is so repugnant and ridiculous that most businesses and all individuals ignore them.
Unfortunately, in their haste, cupidity and basic ignorance of cause an effect, backers like Microsoft neglected to realize that they would create a new kind of company, called a patent troll. These companies would buy patents that Microsoft was violating, and sue them. But Microsoft's patent war chest would be unusable as a defense, because patent trolls are very careful to do absolutely no useful work of any kind. Their entire business is suing the people who do actually do useful work. MS has already had 9-10 figures in judgments come in against them from trolls and they have had a few close calls with actually having to pay out.
If you are wondering who created software patent law, the answer is, not congress. Some lawyers tried it, and it flew, and it's happened all on its own - a little power grab by the patent bar and the USPTO.
This is partly why so few industrialized countries other than the U.S. have a software patent regime the way we do, because it is so prima facie ridiculous. They have been rejected in Europe and Asia. We are an international laughing stock for having such an obviously corrupt practice.
Meanwhile there is very little basis for software patent law to exist even on this basis in the U.S.. The Supreme Court has already famously struck down patents on i.e. math equations, which are vanishingly similar. They came quite close to explicitly striking down software patents already in En Re Bilski. The whole game will be up before long - no one has any choice. The more the practice grows, the faster it chokes itself off.
Good day, sir. Respond if you like, I won't read it.
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Maybe Microsoft and Apple should not have started the war by suing Android manufacturers.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
"Fair" in this context means we abuse all our victims equally.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Today Iridium is a healthy business with nearly half a million subscribers. Motorola may have got that one wrong, but not very far wrong. You know who really deserves to crater as a company for bad management? Microsoft. Kept going only by illegal monopoly control of PC manufacturers and evil software lock-in of the kind that got IBM sued nearly into oblivion in the eighties.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
FRAND is really about non-discrimination. I can't force vastly different terms on a company just because I don't want to compete against them , for example. Usually, FRAND has some sort of patent cross-licensing involved with a small payment attached. The benefit to the original patent holder is that they gain security against being sued by their competitors. It is supposed to ensure that companies compete on products and not with lawyers over competing patents. I think the status quo has changed so rapidly with smartphones, tablets, etc. that the system has just broken down. If you are a company like Apple or Microsoft, without a lot of relevant IP to cross-license, then should you pay more than companies that have cross-licensed? If so, how much more? That is what many of these cases are about.
Except that it doesn't. Google will inherit anything Motorola Mobility gets out of this if China approves the acquisition, but until then Google doesn't have management control over Motorola Mobility.
Usually, FRAND has some sort of patent cross-licensing involved with a small payment attached. The benefit to the original patent holder is that they gain security against being sued by their competitors.
Oh, how that smells like cartel.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
or android users
maybe microsoft and apple should team up against "googorola"
thn again, they'd never agree on "applesoft" or "microple"
actually, who cares, they'll all eventually be bought out by samsung anyway
Javascript was originally developed by Netscape, a company which no longer exists.
The fact that they no longer exist is probably the only thing that is keeping Oracle from suing them as well.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I can see why you'd like me to be less informed. The issue is that Motorola offered a license, which was declined. And these companies are now using the patented technologies without a license having been offered one. They have no license. You are not allowed to use patented technology without a license. They are breaking the law. The "F" in "FRAND" does not stand for "Free".
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The terms Apple wanted were better than the FRAND terms offered.
Apple wanted the same terms as the members of the GSM Alliance get - these are patent holders of GSM (and other mobile technology) patents who have pooled their patents and cross-license them. Obviously, if you are offering something then you get something back. If you're not putting patents into the pool then your licensing costs are going to be higher as you're not contributing.
See http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-14/nokia-apple-payments-to-nokia-settle-all-litigation.html for the similar Nokia - Apple case where Apple were found to be infringing on Nokia's patents where Apple demanded better than FRAND terms.