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Microsoft Wins US Import Ban On Motorola's Android Devices
jbrodkin writes "The U.S. International Trade Commission today ordered an import ban on Motorola Mobility Android products, agreeing with Microsoft that the devices infringe a Microsoft patent on 'generating meeting requests' from a mobile device. The import ban stems from a December ruling that the Motorola Atrix, Droid, and Xoom (among 18 total devices) infringed the patent, which Microsoft says is related to Exchange ActiveSync technology. Today, the ITC said in a 'final determination of violation' (PDF) that 'the appropriate form of relief in this investigation is a limited exclusion order prohibiting the unlicensed entry for consumption of mobile devices, associated software and components thereof covered by ... United States Patent No. 6,370,566 and that are manufactured abroad by or on behalf of, or imported by or on behalf of, Motorola.' Motorola (which is being acquired by Google) was the last major Android device maker not to pay off Microsoft in a patent licensing deal. Microsoft has already responded to the decision, saying it hopes Motorola will now reconsider."
Yeah, if Microsoft were held to that particular standard they would have been out of business a long time ago.
Are you f'ing kidding me? The inmates really are running the asylum.
It is time to step up and show Google the door. If you cannot do business honestly, don't do it at all.
I'm not sure if you are trying to be sarcastic or not. I mean, remember, the other party to this suit is Microsoft.
And oh by the way Google doesn't own Motorola yet, and did not own Motorola when the devices in question were designed. But don't let a little thing like facts get in the way of your shilling or trolling or whatever it is that you're doing.
:(){
Yes, because we all know Microsoft invented the smartphone... wait, what?
Because we can all see how important Microsoft's smartphone inventions have been to the public, by the success of their phones. </sarcasm>
Once again - Generating Meeting Requests? That's certainly a good reason to ban a product. That's all I use my phone for!
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Last time I looked(a few seconds ago), Motorola was being sued, not Google. Google was not even thinking about buying Motorola when those devices were made. So how is this Google hate even relevant?
If you're currently using Exchange, perhaps now is the time to think about using a cloud service for email.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Here's the patent in question:
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-ELAAAAEBAJ&dq=6,370,566
The present invention includes a mobile device which provides the user with the ability to schedule a meeting request from the mobile device itself. The mobile device creates an object representative of the meeting request and assigns the object a global identification number which uniquely identifies the object to other devices which encounter the object. In addition, the mobile device in accordance with one aspect of the present invention provides a property in the object which is indicative of whether the meeting request has already been transmitted. In this way, other devices which encounter the meeting request are capable of identifying it as a unique meeting request, and of determining whether the meeting request has already been transmitted, in order to alleviate the problem of duplicate meeting request transmissions.
Is that really patentable? Assigning a unique ID to a meeting request to alleviate duplicate requests? How can that not be obvious to someone "skilled in the art"?
Is there any other solution that's more obvious? "Hey Joe, I keep getting duplicate meeting requests from your Palm Pilot. Oh noooooos! Hey, I know, I'll send each meeting request in a different color, then if you get two purple ones you'll know it's a dupe".
FTFA: claims 1, 2, 5, or 6 of the United States Patent No. 6,370,566
FTFP:
Claim 1: A mobile device.
Claim 2: Using a GUID.
Claim 5: And an address book.
Claim 6: Which talks to a remote server.
...
We're fucking doomed.
:(){
not think that patents are utterly useless and absurd?
The "invention" in question is laughable beyond belief.
The defendent and plaintiff are mutlinational corporations. Not a little guy that needs protecting.
How do the lawyers whose lifework is this nonsense make sense of their lives? At the end of the day, in your old age, what is the value of your life's work? Did you make anything? Did you help anyone? Or did you shuffle words around a disgusting nonsensical argument foisted on some other lawyers for the sake of absurd privations? What a completely and utterly useless and despicable existence.
Why do we as a society tolerate this useless sideshow? Oh, because of all the money involved, right.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yeah, if Microsoft were held to that particular standard they would have been out of business a long time ago.
Microsoft has hardly been an innovator. I wonder who they bought the patent from.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Story - Microsoft Wins US Import Ban On Motorola's Android Devices - Posted by Soulskill on Friday May 18, @05:38PM .
First comment praising Microsoft - a properly worded, properly paragraphed, properly punctuated, comment, with a link with description - all of this taking up a 100 words not including punctuation - Posted by kdps (2642743) on Friday May 18, @05:38PM .
Generating meeting requests? Seriously, how the fuck is that an innovation that someone skilled in the art would not be able to come up with? It's time the patent office was held responsible for enabling patent trolling by lowering the bar to the ground. How about a system where any patent that ends up being overturned requires the patent office to pay the associated legal fees? You'd need a 3rd party to conduct the reexaminations to avoid conflict of interest, but it might do something to stem the tide of handing out junk patents like penny candy.
Let's look at what Microsoft won and lost here.
Eight of the nine patents in suit are rendered useless. As soon as the last one is worked around, nine of nine. Everybody will work now to avoid these litigious patents. Microsoft's licensing strategy is to not reveal the patents at all because they can be worked around.
They don't get the $15 per device license fees, in perpetuity, they wanted.
Moto has to pay $0.33 per device, and only on the few devices found to infringe, and might actually get that money back if they bother to try. But regardless they save $14.67 per device - and that's just starting now. They don't pay any back money for prior devices.
Moto and Google have probably already worked around this patent and the cure is in testing. Once it's applied the net cost to Moto goes back to zero until the next time.
By successfully suing Moto for using Microsoft's patented Exchange API, they've recommitted to a course of prevention of interopability in a core Office product some had claimed was behind them. Way to go! We get to bring this up every time someone tries to say things have changed, or you should use some Microsoft technology and it will be OK (Mono, C#, and so on).
They don't get to cross-license Moto patents, ever. Moto has a LOT of patents.
Moto gets to be bitter and sue them back over every single thing they can, like H.264 patents, wireless patents and so on. Microsoft has to drop the DVD codecs from Windows 8, for example.
Everybody else who's paying Microsoft for Android gets to see that it is more economical to fight than to pay. Moto gets a $15 per device cost advantage on their Android devices, the better to compete with.
In return Microsoft may have earned the princely sum of One MILLION dollars, less lawyer expenses. (Based on 3 million devices imported before the issue is sorted out.)
Way to go guys! That's how you win in the digital age. Keep doing stuff like this and you'll earn your just reward.
Help stamp out iliturcy.