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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.
Which he does very well indeed.
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."
No, Microsoft has released details of the claimed license, by Samsung of its 'Android patents'. But leaks came out that Sammy would get 'marketing money' back from Microsoft, and lo and behold they did.
Here's Microsoft and their fake claim to IP rights over Android:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15106889
Here's money back from MS to Samsung:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/10/16/2050244/microsoft-pays-44-million-to-samsung-and-nokia-for-mango-marketing
Now suddenly they want the real details sealed? Yet they were keen to claim it was a patent license for IP claims over Android!
MSFT Investors need to wonder what the truth is here, because Samsung doesn't mind the unsealing, but yet MS does? But MS were the ones making the public claim, not Samsung!!
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
If you're expecting the state to pay because you throw your toys out of the pram then everything should be made public.
Don't want your dirty laundry aired in public, then either grow up or pay an independent arbitrator to make the decision. What is it with people wanting to eat their cake and have it too?
...IBM's motion to prevent Reuters from publishing what IBM gave them has been denied already. Those of a conspiracy turn of mind will now cue the old boy network where IBM execs get together with Reuter's execs at the Old Boys Club and work out what Reuters gets for not publishing after all.
Reuters may gleefully print the whole thing, but that seems unlikely. More likely they'll excerpt it anyway, even without any alleged backroom deals.
I know I know, I read TFA. I'm sorry... it won't happen again.
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.
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.
I'm not so sure. Apple has publicly claimed at several occasions that they dislike the patent system and find it hurtful. And in the long run, the suing spree that Apple is currently leading could do a lot of good. Already some judges have made public statements that the patent system is just out of control.
All in all, Apple is raising awareness on the silliness of the patent system, and I think that's good. And I can't imagine that nobody at Apple is aware of that fact.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Eventually, maybe, when they get any competitors which would require such a monster portfolio to stop.
Right now, the junior partner, patent disadvantaged due to its young age, is Google. It is the indirect target of all these lawsuits, the monster they want to stop. It's just too popular (not least in Washington) to sue directly without a proxy.
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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?!?!"
Anyway, the IBM motion has already been denied. If IBM can't get it, there's a fair chance Microsoft won't, either.
One of the big reasons this is interesting is that we might finally find out exactly what patents Microsoft thinks that Linux violates.
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters, in ISO-8859-1 Has just realised that beta makes this signature redundant
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.
It was well after they had started their suing spree. The way I see it is this: If you want to be competitive and survive you have to play by the rules. The rules state that you can't use some stuff that is patented without explicit permission and/or licensing fees which are not guaranteed to be granted or even fair unless your patent if a FRAND one. If ${BigCorp} wants to be competitive they have to enforce those rules on their patent, to counteract the fact that they're paying everyone up on theirs and thus bleeding money to the competition with no counterpart.
Apple's stance is not to license, but to restrict which is their perfect right. Some people don't like it.
The fact that they play by today's rules is a necessity. It doesn't imply at all that they like the rules.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
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