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ITC Judge Calls For US Xbox Import Ban
symbolset writes "In the long running dispute between Motorola and Microsoft, Judge David Shaw of the ITC recommended Monday an import ban on Xbox 360 S consoles, as they are found to infringe Motorola's patents (PDF). The judge also ordered Microsoft post a bond of 7 percent of the retail price of all unsold U.S. Xbox inventory. The decision will go to the ITC's board of commissioners, who will either uphold the recommendation or overturn it. 'Microsoft argued that Shaw's exclusion order does not serve the public interest because it would leave consumers of video game consoles with only two options to satisfy their needs: the Sony Playstation and the Nintendo Wii. Shaw rejected that argument, finding that the public interest in enforcing intellectual property rights outweighs any potential economic impact on video game console buyers.'"
This follows news last week of Microsoft winning an import ban on Motorola's Android devices.
Both sides are assholes on this one. They seriously need to overhaul the US patent system, the balance has been tipped (for a long time) to where it stifles innovation way, way more than it fosters it.
About the only things that deserve patents are fundamental discoveries and drugs that are unique and cost hundreds of millions to develop and test. And even then, just provide some kind of "formula patent" that only lasts 5-6 years.
Most patents are fundamentally flawed because they rely on a small leap from someone else's existing work. Sure, if you just step outside the box and totally invent zero point energy in your mad scientist lab you should get a patent and make $5 trillion from it. But most "inventions" are just trifling little bullshit extensions of something that exists already.
Pretty much this. Let's be honest. No one involved in this patent-war-on-twelve-fronts gives a flying fuck at a rolling donut about "the public interest."
They need to go ahead with the ban. The only thing that's ever made the giants in the sandbox ever stop and go "wait a sec..." was MAD.
Well, Microsoft won an import ban against Motorola for a patent on "generating meeting requests", so I'd say turnabout is fair play, in this case.
Although you are right about the damages, in a way: how are all those red-ringed XBOX 360s supposed to get replaced now? *ducks*
Google is evil.
Ah, right. Let me check: timestamp of post matches that of article, 4 post history all on Google/MS discussions (all today). Oh look, a shill!
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Yeah, sure, blame Google. After all they acquired control over Motorola yesterday so they must be responsible for this ruling which came out 2 days ago.
"Microsoft argued that Shaw's exclusion order does not serve the public interest because it would leave consumers of video game consoles with only two options to satisfy their needs"
Bah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Microsoft sure has some huge balls.
The ITC has determined that just about every product out there violates some patent or other, so to play it safe, no products will be allowed into the United Staes ever again.
Well maybe if Microsoft didn't want to be victims of broken patent law, they should have done something about it... like lobbying to fix the patent system. Corporations are good at lobbying about stuff they care about and Microsoft is no exception - they both lobby for what they want and they've also exploited the broken patent system when it suited them in the past.
The public won't fix the patent system, politicians only listen to the corporate wallets today. So let's make bad laws work against corporations and then maybe these corporations will try to change the laws.
Apple, Microsoft, Sony, Motorla and others should all be victimized by patent law as much as possible. Just like the MPAA/RIAA should be made victims of bad copyright law. Then things will change for the good of the public.
unfortunately, turnabout play does nothing for the customer or the nation.
It does if it convinces companies that they need to lobby against the patent system instead of for it.
About the only things that deserve patents are fundamental discoveries and drugs that are unique and cost hundreds of millions to develop and test. And even then, just provide some kind of "formula patent" that only lasts 5-6 years.
I know of very few cases when a fundamental discovery was made by a commercial company, they usually shy away from anything that takes a decade or more to develop. Usually this is funded by the goverment which is supposed to have a longer term view.
Both this action by Motorola (Google)...
The lawsuit in which Microsoft sued Motorola started long before Google began the process of acquiring Motorola Mobility and the judgment was made about a week before the acquisition. This lawsuit, in which Motorola sued Microsoft, began around the same time. Further, this was Motorola suing Microsoft, no Motorola Mobility, which Google fully acquired just a few days ago.
Google may not be perfect, but they're also not the assholes who started this shit; hell, they're not even involved int it. If anything, they're getting screwed on the Motorola Mobility deal because of this.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Microsoft wants it both ways. They want to block somebody elses product.... Android..... but not their own. Fairness says both companies should be blocked. Good for the judge.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
My understanding is that the Xbox 360 uses Windows Media Audio 10 Professional for all system and game audio.
If the main issue is the H.264 video codec, why can't they just switch to Microsoft WMV/VC-1 or one of the many open source ones available? Sounds like a simple software system update to me if its just the video apps doing it. If H.264 is used on game discs then MS needs to payup.
I wonder how long this system will remain viable?
Reminds me of a story concerning the game "MULE" (an excellent little multi-player economy-based game set around the building of a new colony). I liked this game a lot and often played against my brothers and friends. We'd play very competitively, each trying to maximize our own profits. Then I met a friend at college and happened to mention this game. She said, "Oh, I love that game too. What was the richest colony you made?" Until she asked, it hadn't occurred to me that you could play the game a different way: cooperatively, in order to achieve the best good for the colony as a whole.
I wonder when humanity will figure that out too.
(This is not an endorsement of "socialism" or "communism" or anything like that, or even a criticism of competition. It's just a note that we tend to focus too much on little-picture, selfish goals instead of big-picture ones. Compete to make the best thing, rather than compete to kill the competition.)
About the only things that deserve patents are fundamental discoveries and drugs that are unique and cost hundreds of millions to develop and test. And even then, just provide some kind of "formula patent" that only lasts 5-6 years.
Abolish patents entirely and replace private research with publically funded research. The hard work (discovering new drug targets) is done by the NIH anyway. All pharma does are the clinical studies which are pretty much rote. They could easly be done by the public as well. And if we take the profit motive out of the situation, maybe we won't see 100,000 annual deaths due to adverse drug reactions.
Patents exit to encourage private investors to invest in research. But if we directly fund research, we need no patents. The best part is that when the public does all the work, we'll get to keep all the profits too.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
MS switching to an opensource codec on a closed DRM machine to get around software patents...
You are FUNNY!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
'Shaw rejected that argument, finding that the public interest in enforcing intellectual property rights outweighs any potential economic impact on video game console buyers.'
This guy is seriously disconnected from the real world if he thinks that enforcing intellectual property rights is more important to the public than the availability of a popular product. As far as I can tell, the only people benefiting from the escalating levels of IP enforcement are the lawyers and cartels, while the public are getting shafted as the draconian measures erode their freedoms.
No, the judge is applying the law as it stands.
The claim is that patents are "in the public interest" and that somehow they makes the world a better place.
But if you look at the sheer tangled web of patent lawsuits which cover Microsoft, Samsung, Apple, Motorolla, Google, and I'm not even sure who else ... I'm not convinced that patents help the 'public', or helps to spur innovation. They have the opposite effect.
You can say you don't care, but the fact of the matter is there's huge swaths of products and technologies you couldn't get into the market with because you'd violate a gazillion patents and unless you have a couple of billion in licensing fees, you'd get sued into oblivion.
I believe one of the patents in this whole mess is "scheduling an appointment from a mobile device" ... which is almost exactly the same as "scheduling an appointment in real life", and nearly almost exactly similar to "scheduling an appointment with a computer".
But, some drooling idiot decided that something that is well known but with a mobile device is an "invention". And then we get patent stupidity like this. (I'm sure there's more to it than that, but some days it feels like it.)
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
unfortunately, turnabout play does nothing for the customer or the nation.
The patent law is only half the problem. The other half is the business practices that these companies
choose to take.
Given the inertia in changing the patent system, (good luck seeing that in your life time), the import bans are (arguably) the way to go.
Only by forcing these things into the nuclear condition can you ever get big companies to realize that cheap and perfunctory
cross-licensing is the only way to assure there are no costly misadventures down the line.
Once it become the norm to cross-license (or very cheaply license), and the companies realize its more
trouble and less revenue than it is worth to go after someone for these tiny little improvements and
combinations of existing technology, they will perhaps stop beating each other up with lawyers.
They could then do it all on line, via email, and maybe they would simply resort to publishing these inconsequential
compilations of technology, so that nobody else could patent them and let the chips fall where they may.
Its fitting that Microsoft got caught in this trap. Now if we can catch Apple's next phone and block it
at the ports maybe some progress can be made in this direction.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
you demand that all software patents come complete with working prototype source code.
I am told that there are a thousand mousetrap patents in the patent office, each one with blueprint describing how to build one. Now, if we use the same approach for software patents, you should be able to create the same concept in a different way - eg, trapping mice, or maybe sliding something to unlock a screen.
As it is, software patents simply patent the concept, and they are usually as vague as possible. It is also easy to submit a thousand patents, making working code be supplied with it would make the number of submissions reduce, and would let us have open source code after the patent expires, and would allow people to implement the same thing as long as it didn't use the same codebase (or a significant amount of the code already patented).
It would possibly be the best compromise between no software patents and patenting some algorithms that are real inventions such a GSM radio or video codecs.
No, they get labeled as a shill when the account is made fresh just for the story. Their position on issues is secondary.
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
I think we're seeing some wide cracks in the patent system if a product can be produced right up to EOL before an import ban can be thrown at it.
Looking at it rationally, how could it possibly work any other way?
Given that there are patents, gazillions of them, how can you possibly read thru each and every on to find out if your new product might have run afoul of some clause in some obscure patent, especially when the language of those patents is purposely written to be vague and all inclusive? You would have to spend two years of patent lawyer time researching what it took you two months to breadboard up in the lab.
These things are always going to be discovered after the fact.
While developing your new gizmo, you only look at the obvious competitors. (Some avoid looking at all, due to the risk of idea pollution).
Microsoft does not see Motorola as a competitor in game consoles, so they ignore them. Same for John Deere tractors. No game consoles. Ignore them.
But then they make the mistake of trying to block Motorola phones, and Moto starts digging around in its bag of patents for a club to hit Microsoft with.
Would Moto spend that time and money without the initial provocation? I'm guessing not.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
>>>False.
Oh well, OK. I guess I was wrong then. Thanks for setting me straight. It's not like I've worked in biology for a decade or anything. It's not like I've taken medical pharmacology classes where they explained exactly who is responsible for what part of the drug discovery process. Nah, your simple assertion without evidence is all I need to change my mind.
Oh hell, I have, and I know what I'm talking about. And it's easily verifiable if you go to the library and read a book or two about the pharmaceutical industry. The fact is the pharmaceutical industry contributes very little to the process, and pockets the vast majority of the profits. Deny this if you like, it only illustrates your ignorance.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I think the point mozumder was trying to make is that a lot of basic research is funded by government grants. Corporations are very happy to throw money at a discovery that seems likely to produce more money immediately, but are generally loath to spend money on discoveries that are not directly something they can sell.
An example Carl Sagan brought up is Maxwell's equations on electromagnetic fields. Extremely important to radar, television, cell phones, and a million other major technologies today. His equations are fundamental to trillions and trillions of dollars in profits today. But the equations themselves are just knowledge and wouldn't turn a profit directly. In today's climate, Maxwell would be funded by grants from the government, corporations would be unlikely to fund him.
I am guessing you have never worked in R&D. It is not quite as extreme as Hatta indicates, but a great deal of the heavy lifting in drug research is indeed done by government funded entities, with the liability and market centric tasks done by the drug companies.
Generally people don't go into research because of a 'profit motive'. Research jobs do not pay all that well, esp the ones on the 'heavy lifting' side of thing, so they tend to be staffed by people who are motived through doing good research and building reputation.
Not sure what a video about some jerk has to do with anything.
The British NHS has been a state-funded venture from the start (although there is currently legislation in place to change this) so the doctors do not gain/lose anything through profit motive, their general motivation to do their job is the Hypocratic oath and general ethical outlook. Suggesting all doctors are driven by profit seems to be a bit insulting to the profession. Hell, even lawyers do pro bono work, and they're the ones I'd classify as "profit driven" if anyone.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
Keep in mind that Universities, one of the biggest centers of innovation (often government funded), tend to have massive patent portfolios. They license them out to companies and that in turn funds more fundamental research^W^W^W bigger stadium. So if we killed the system completely we would also have to restructure how basic research is done... which would probably be a good, thing.. just pointing out that corporations are not the only ones utilizing this system.
FTFY. Sorry..
You only think it would be like that because you've been brainwashed by your corporations. Those of us who live in countries where the doctors and hospitals are government owned and operated know for a fact that your statement is patently absurd. Our doctors and hospitals do strive to do their best, despite the sole financial motive being "not making a loss".
For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".