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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.'"
already in process - Vringo has settled part of a suit against AOL, but stands to receive as much as $1B from Google (that's not a misprint, it's widely estimated that damages could go as high as one billion US Dollars.) Trial starts around Oct 18th if memory serves
WTF is a "video ring tone company"?
You need to pay the license fee in order to obtain the proprietary information which compromises the patented answer to that question.
Something being legal doesn't make it right.
What would be the effect of restricting a patent holder from initiating litigation to infringements made prior to the acquisition of the patent? This would leave many issues inherent in patents unsolved. But, because it's so simple, would be an easy barrier to put in place, and hopefully lower the benefit/cost of patent trolling.
This would have required Nokia to initiate litigation vs. Research in Motion prior to selling the the patent to Vringo. This would certainly affect their image. If they were not concerned about this, they might have pursued a case v. RIM themselves, or at least outsourced it.
Vringo could immediately demand that Research in Motion cease any ongoing infringement. But R.I.M could then simply cease infringement, and Vringo would get no return on their patent acquisition. Vringo could also demand liscensing fees for ongoing RIM use of the patented tech... R.I.M could decline, or contest the patent, making the prospect of buying patents for the purpose of Trolling less alluring.
We all know that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is a sockpuppet of Steve Ballmer (why the Nokia shareholders put up with this is beyond me, but it probably reflects the lack of actual control over corporate governance by the nominal owners). Now Elop is taking yet more actions that don't really help Nokia, but are calculated to hurt Google (and probably Apple as well) as much as possible. The reason is obvious: Microsoft wants these Nokia patents in the hands of patent trolls to cause trouble.
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.
different lawsuit - Vringo has sued Google for patents owned from a previous merger not related to the Nokia patents... but it does support the idea of Vringo going after patent infringements for a primary source of revenue.
WTF is a "video ring tone company"?
Those idiots who advertise on the 'cheap' channels, promising a free ringtone for your phone of some semi-popular quote or song if you text a certain number with your credit card info and set up a $10/mo. subscription with them.
Think of it as a company that administers a public telecom IQ test (hint: if you pass, you're not one of their customers).
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
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.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Was there any bidding process? I assume not. Just some very shady deal in the interest of Microsoft only (FEDs should check if there are contracts saying Vringo cannot sue Microsoft, that would kind of prove that Elop still only works for Microsoft).
I think the Nokia shareholders are getting ripped off by CEO Elop and the board, I hope someone sues them soon, before it is too late. Nokia is ripped off like nobody before got ripped off. The following text shows how major decisions by Elop (ex Microsoft) are only in the interest of Microsoft and not at all in the interest of Nokia.
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/07/the-sun-tzu-of-nokisoftian-microkia-mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-whose-the-baddest-of-them-all-waterloo.html
And all those saying Nokia was already dead when Elop came, you are shills or blind, read it too. E.g. start reading the first âoeREASONsâ in the link. They were still twice their competitors when Elop came, alone in China they could have as many customers as Apple has worldwide by a exclusive deal (bound to MeeGo). Distance to Apple was growing at that time. All systematically destroyed in the following months. I don't say they were super fine, but they were still a monster, the elephant in the room. No outside force could move it nearly as fast as Elop has. Now they are an empty shell.
If you have time, read this. It's very long but good (19 reasons why Elop should be fired, you can skip the intro to REASON 1 if you are lazy).
No way the CEO AND the board do not see the logic behind most of these 19 reasons. This is a scam, there must be a huge reward for most of them on some secret channel. Money? Girls? Power?
Anonymous please give us their Email and transform Elops and Balmer's phones into bugs that we can hear what they are talking in private. Jail them all.