Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft, IBM Want to Seal Patents Agreements With Samsung
sfcrazy writes "The court battle between Apple and Samsung has created the possibility of disclosing the cross patent agreement between Microsoft and Samsung. Microsoft is suddenly scared and has filed a motion asking the court to seal the cross license agreement. I would like to remind that the Judge has asked both parties to make all the filings in this dispute available to the public for free."
And on Monday, IBM filed for a restraining order to prevent Reuters from publishing their agreement with Samsung as well.
Wait, what now? Slashdot's summaries are starting to get quite childish. Microsoft is scared, really?
It couldn't even barely be possible that Microsoft wants to follow the mobile companies common practice of cross licensing almost all of their patents.
This includes one of the pioneers of mobile industry, Nokia, as well as they could stop licensing their technology and make the other companies really suffer. But the armchair generals and armchair CEO's on Slashdot think everything is outright war between technology companies. In fact it's not.
Methinks we're going to see who the real villains are in this story. Apple may be evil and all, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Note that Apple being villain and all is all due to the fact that they make their patent dispute public, unlike the rest of the field which hides it under a thick veil of secrecy. I'd be very interested to know exactly who gets paid what over there.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
However, I doubt any of it is much of a brake on real technical progress. The limitation on that, at the moment, is battery technology. And that has been the limitation on mobile technical progress since the first mobile phones.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
If differing companies are paying differing licensing rates on the same patents it would change all future negotiations. It's no wonder MS and Motorola have filed emergency motions. Who is charging how much for what is something that I doubt most companies want revealing. Particularly Microsoft, with it's claims against Andoid. We know of FAT and probably activesync, but they claim patents on a great deal more.
What I'd like to see is the consequences of this case eventually shedding light on the US Patent Office and why some of the more dubious patents are granted. This case could easily be far wider ranging than it first appears.
Watch those corners
In my opinion they don't want to keep only the public from viewing these agreements, they want the other corporate partners not to know the details, because they could use it to renegotiate the terms.
Imagine this hypothetical situation:
Microsoft has an agreement both with Sony and with Apple. They both agreed on different but confidential patent agreements.
Sony paid (or swapped) more than Apple.
Apple releases their agreement.
Sony sees this and has a reason to renegotiate.
The reason it is public is because Apple are using their patents in the courts to restrict competition from entering the market rather than licencing for a reasonable sum to make money.
I don't think this has anything to do with "image". Rather they realise that this is a critical time in cornering a market that will continue to pay off for them for a long time.
Just like the iPod made the iPhone purchase a "no brainer" for many people the iPhone makes (or will make) the iPad or Apple TV (etc etc) a no brainer. Once people are invested in the iTunes/Appstore ecosystem they are more likely to stay there (and keep spending more money there).
Removing credible alternatives to the iPhone from the market doesn't just mean more iPhone sales now, it means more recurring sales down the road too.
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It's about the patent deals, not the patents themselves. It is a lot more likely that both companies are afraid of being investigated for monopolistic behavior if those deals become public knowledge.
More than likely it has to do with the various companies they've cross-licensed with finding out who got sweetheart deals and who got totally screwed over.
"Hey, why am I paying ten times what he's paying?!?!"
Patents are open to the public. Patent licensing agreements however are not. How is this hard to understand? Between your childish use of 'M$' and your complete lack of knowledge about what the article is about it seems pretty obvious which side you're on. Also, Microsoft is scared? What the hell Slashdot. This used to be the place I came for real tech news. Not some user's blatant bias.
How so? This is about mobile and Microsoft were beating the patent drum long before they were doing much in mobile.
The bitch? I have NO doubt Linux DOES violate MSFT patents, as MSFT violates Samsung, Intel violates AMD, that is why all these corps sign these cross licensing agreements in the first place ya know. That's the real bitch with Linux when it comes to patents as these corps have been filing so damned many patents and the patents are so vague they could just bullet spam you with patents until they stick.
But this is why we can't have nice things like the cool new MIPS chips from Loongson that has hardware assisted X86 virtualization, because all these corps cross license up the ass to make a hell of a barrier to entry for new players. It stinks but since insuring that those at the top stay on top seems to be the USA motto its really not surprising, nor will it be surprising when China and India start coming out with the cool new ideas because they won't have to deal with patent minefields.
Hell how many years would it take a highly expensive patent lawyer just to go through the mobile patents here just to see if your new idea is gonna be buried by patents? I bet the number would be just insane. Kinda hard to come up with cool new tech while tapdancing through a minefield that can destroy your company with a single misstep.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.