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Posner Dismisses Apple/Motorola Case, With Prejudice

Posted by Soulskill on from the get-out-and-stay-out dept.

whisper_jeff writes "Judge Posner has dismissed the patent case between Apple and Motorola, with prejudice (meaning they can't refile), putting an end to this patent dispute between the two companies. Posner wrote, 'Both parties have deep pockets. And neither has acknowledged that damages for the infringement of its patents could not be estimated with tolerable certainty.' I know many on Slashdot will be happy to hear Apple's lawsuit failed; I am happier to hear that Motorola has been prevented from abusing FRAND patents, a situation I feel could set a very bad, very dangerous precedent for the entire industry."

10 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. What the...!? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...we have a judge that DOESN'T have his head up his ass?

  2. FRAND is a red herring by rtfa-troll · · Score: 5, Insightful

    FRAND is just another patent cartel and we have no reason to care about it. FRAND standards organisations should be seen as a form of illegal cartel.

    Even funnier is that Apple and Microsoft, who have completely failed to get licenses for these FRAND patents go around attempting to mug people with knives and start crying like babies when companies like Motorola that have actually done some serious research in their lives pull out a combat shotgun. "Want to make my day?".

    --
    =~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
    1. Re:FRAND is a red herring by SuricouRaven · · Score: 5, Informative

      I notice that the F is for 'fair' not 'free.' Noncommercial users, espicially free software, tend to get excluded as they can't afford the royalty. This is why Firefox doesn't support h264 video.

    2. Re:FRAND is a red herring by whisper_jeff · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is up AGAIN???

      Screw it - I'm going to copy-paste a blog post I wrote back when this was making the rounds before.

      -----

      "Good artists copy; great artists steal."

      Now, obviously, this quote is thrown about in an effort to make Apple and/or Steve look bad and imply that they ripped off ideas from others. Well, the problem is the quote is actually a misquote which thus clouds the point, which is rare for someone of Steve's speaking elegance. Most people who know it's a misquote believe he's misquoting Picasso but the truth is he's misquoted TS Elliot. The actual quote is:

      "One of the surest tests [of the superiority or inferiority of a poet] is the way in which a poet borrows. Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different than that from which it is torn; the bad poet throws it into something which has no cohesion. A good poet will usually borrow from authors remote in time, or alien in language, or diverse in interest."

      Now, when you compare Steve's misquote and TS Elliot's actual quote, you see they actually say basically the same thing but TS Elliot's full quote obviously puts the whole thing into context so the point is understood.

      And I agree with it.

      I have long believed that there are no more original ideas, just interesting takes on old ideas.

      Now, as with Steve's misquote, when expressed that simply, my point can get lost and often has led to people disagreeing with me, strongly. But my point is this - as we grow up, we are exposed to extensive amounts of information that becomes the background noise of our creative processes. As we write, paint, sculpt, compose, and otherwise create, we are influenced, in one way or another, by everything we've seen and heard up until that point. Sometimes the inspiration is heavy and obvious and other times it's subtle and we aren't even aware of it. But we're always influenced by what we've seen up until that point of creation. And good creators put an interesting spin or twist on their inspirations and come up with something that seems and feels new and original. But, at the end of the day, there are no more original ideas, only interesting takes on old ideas.

      While many toss around Steve's misquote in the hopes of painting him and Apple in a bad light, they fail to realize that, though he over-simplified a complex issue, he's right. As was TS Elliot before him. Great creators are inspired by what has come before them; they transform and mold and adapt their creation until its something new and wonderful while other creators simply copy without any of the finesse, simply regurgitating what came before.

      And, when viewed in the context of Apple, it is clearly relevant. Apple is often touted as being innovative and original by some while others quickly point out that they're just doing what others have done before them. And you know what, both sides are right, which shows that Apple is a "good poet" - they take something and make it into something better, or at least different. They weld the theft into a whole of feeling which is unique. Apple wasn't the first to market with a graphic UI, but they transformed the computer market with Mac OS; Apple wasn't the first to market with an MP3 music player, but they transformed the market with the iPod; Apple wasn't the first to market with a smartphone, but they transformed the market with the iPhone; Apple wasn't the first to market with an ultralight laptop, but they've transformed the market with the Macbook Air; Apple wasn't the first to market with a tablet PC, but they've transformed the market with the iPad. The list goes on and on - they may not be the first, but they transform a market when the enter it.

      You don't have to like Apple, but you'd be foolish to ignore that TS Elliot's quote is an accurate portrayal of the company's overall approach. And that'

  3. Biased summary much? by arkhan_jg · · Score: 5, Informative

    Motorola has licenced its FRAND patents to many companies, and the price is their standard one. Many other companies in the mobile phone space have reached agreements on those terms - Nokia, Ericsson, RIM, Samsung, LG, and HTC have all done so, for example. However, those companies also have relevant FRAND patents, so everyone cross-licences their patents to each other, allowing them all to operate. They all bring their patents to the table, share them with each other, and crack on with making phones. Those with small patent pools may end up paying the larger players under FRAND terms - anything up to 5% is standard.

    Apple doesn't have such radio patents - they haven't been involved in inventing the essential standards for wireless comms, phones etc. So the normal process would be either to pay the standard patent licence fees which FRAND standards involve to 'buy in', or cross-licence some of their own software patents in exchange.

    Apple doesn't want to pay any fees at all, let alone a fairly standard 2.5%. They see FRAND and think 'free'. Nor do they want to cross-licence any software patents, as they want to drive all android phones from the marketplace. Apple sued motorola and sought injunctions to stop them selling phones. Same with samsung.

    Apple spent years trying to avoid paying nokia's patent licence fees for FRAND patents, and eventually settled the lawsuit - they ended up paying £700m lump sum plus £7 an iphone in licencing costs last year.

    It's doubly ironic that Apple castigates samsung for stealing their unique patents which amounts to a black rounded rectangle shape with icons in a grid on it, yet don't see why they should have to pay up to licence FRAND patents that literally are what makes the phone capable of being a phone.

    And FRAND doesn't mean you can't sue. It just means you have to offer the same licencing price to everyone first - if they pay that, they're safe. The licencing fee can't be too high - which isn't defined - but up to 5% is standard in the industry. But if someone refuses to licence, and then sues you first? That's hardly a dangerous precedent to sue right back, and motorola is far from the first to do so.

    Remember who declared "I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong... I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

    It wasn't Motorola or Samsung.

    --
    Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
  4. Biased quoting much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    If you're going to quote, quote the reason why.

    Of course, lawsuits are usually made to be settled, but Jobs was having none of it. Meeting with then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt, a man who for years sat on Apple's board before Android made that no longer possible, Jobs told Schmidt that money wasn't going to make it right. "I don't want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it," Jobs reportedly said. "I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want." And with that, the door to any possible settlement was slammed shut.

    1. Re:Biased quoting much? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Excellent.

      So, when is apple going to stop using everyone elses technology?
      For example,all these radio technology patents?

      And really people, why do idiots seem to think apple has a stronger case with 'slide to unlock', roundtangles, and touch-to-launch than massivly complex radio standards that took decades of indepth research in to wireless systems to develop?

      APPLE are starting to play desperate here, as was inevitable when they decided they were going to 'own' an area of technology they had no positioning in..

    2. Re:Biased quoting much? by Rich0 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Slide to Unlock - It's not apples fault it was patented, they're using the system that that's there to be used. It's a crap system, but it's the one their is and that isn't apples fault.

      The thing is, none of the other major vendors has been doing that with phones. I don't see vendors suing each other over having green call and red disconnect buttons, and so on. I'm sure one of the vendors had that first.

      Just because a system allows you to be a sociopath doesn't mean I can't call you one when you abuse it.

      There's some guy living in a home down the street. I have never met him and have no idea if he is a nice guy or not. I can probably ruin his day by filing a lawsuit against him right now for some creatively-devised offense. It probably costs me all of $50 to do it if I'm willing to put in the time, and it will cost him thousands of dollars to fight off. Oh, I doubt I'll get anything for it, but I can certainly ruin his day, and there isn't a thing in the world he can do about it, and it is perfectly legal.

      So why don't I do it, even if the guy cuts me off on the road? Simple, I'm not a sociopath. If I were to start acting like one then I'd expect those around me to call me out on it (well, if I really were a sociopath I might not expect them to, but they'd be just as right to do it).

      What is legal has nothing to do with what is right. Being evil is a choice.

  5. Patent portfolio not so great, aktsually... by Areyoukiddingme · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Isn't this bad news for all of those companies who think they've built a huge defensive portfolio of patents to use in countersuits? Even fairly legitimate patents at that. The disinterested observer doesn't have to work very hard to conclude that Motorola's patents are fundamental to cellular phones and are therefore very valuable, while Apple's software patents are worthless duplicates of other people's ideas that shouldn't even be eligible for patent protection in the first place. Despite this enormous disparity, Motorola's countersuit, intended to defend themselves against Apple's foray into legal brigandage, is also dismissed with prejudice. So the fundamental hardware patents they own are useless to them as a defensive mechanism.

    Motorola has to be very unhappy right now. Even if their fundamental hardware patents are legitimate and valuable, one of the world's largest smartphone manufacturers has successfully avoided paying royalties for them, forever.

    So giant patent portfolios are worth... what, exactly?

  6. Misjudged FRAND patents by mikmach · · Score: 5, Informative
    I feel that most people don't really understand idea behind FRAND patents. It had two objectives:

    1) Prevent war between 'gorillas'. All of them were putting major resources into R&D in hardware and FRAND patents allow them to share knowledge without heavy fighting of negotiations which would only filled lawyers pockets

    2) Lower barriers for small players. With FRAND they can license necessary technology without breaking budget and allow to concentrate on product.

    Now we have third situation: gorilla enters the fray and want to use FRAND system without paying entry fee (resources put into R&D). It is Apple which abuses FRAND system, not Motorola, Nokia, etc. If it wants to not be treated with contempt it should put their 'design patents' into FRAND pool.