Nokia Feeds a Patent Troll

New submitter glebovitz writes "In case anyone missed the other Nokia news: on the same day they announced the sale of Qt to Digia, they also sold 500 patents to Vringo. Vringo, a video ring tone company, recently merged with patent portfolio company Innovate/Protect which includes Donald Stout, the founder of patent holding company NTP, on its board. Forbes refers to NTP as 'a patent troll which milked Research In Motion for $612.5 million in a patent infringement settlement reached in 2006.' As Eric Savitz writes in the article, 'Vringo decided to basically turn itself into a patent troll.'"

Comments

Nokia selling more of its crown jewels

[Anonymous Coward]

In its quest to become another no-name mobile phone OEM it is imperative to shut down all research and development, because the future really isn't important.

Why haven't the shareholders held a vote of no confidence in the current Nokia board?

Re:Nokia selling more of its crown jewels

[hairyfeet]

Look any way you slice it Nokia is dead and they were dead before Elop ever walked in the door, why? Because their big business is about to go the way of the 8-track, that's why. Nokia made their money on dumbphones and we can all see the writing on the wall, as the chips drop dumbphones will disappear. Hell Walmart has begun offering smartphones on their cheapo prepaid plans at $125, when that gets down to $50 that's it, its over.

Put yourself in the shoes of Elop, you walk through the door and the business is totally fractured, you got no less than THREE different phone OSes, none of which is compatible with the others, Symbian, MeeGo/Maemo, and the Java based one I can't remember the name of. Now the company couldn't buy WebOS because they couldn't throw a billion like HP, Apple sure as fuck ain't selling them iOS, Android is right out because Samsung and HTC do it better than anybody and the market is flooded with Android phones already, and no product you have will be able to compete for at least a year and a half and that is if everything goes perfectly. So he took the money from MSFT and hoped like hell they knew WTF they were doing with WinPhone.

Was it a good call? Nope but frankly i don't see what other call the guy could make, Android would make them an also ran, a third or fourth string player at best compared to Samsung and HTC, and MeeGo/Maemo simply wasn't done and was already behind. When you are in the same market as Apple you can't go half assed which is what MeeGo would have been if he shoved it out the door so the guy literally was out of options. He had no OS, a market that was dying, and was rapidly running out of time. I don't see where the guy had a choice really, its not like he could wave a magic wand and suddenly make MeeGo/Maemo into an iPhone killer, it just wasn't anywhere near done.

Re:Distinctions should be made

[schitso]

Something being legal doesn't make it right.

Re:Distinctions should be made

[MoonFog]

Because the entire business method of patent trolls typically include only suing others. They don't generate anything of value and will only fatten the bank accounts for themselves and their lawyer.

These aren't guys who invented something, got a patent on it and sued those trying to copy, they buy patents from others (who may not even have bothered going after the alleged infringers) and use those patents as grounds to sue. They are leeches.

Re:faith in humanity lost...

[medcalf]

You first.