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Google Seeks US Ban On iPhones, iPads, Macs
theodp writes "Following up on an announcement that it would rid itself of 4,000 employees world-wide and renege on a deal with the State of Illinois, Google's Motorola Mobility unit said it has filed a new patent-infringement case against Apple, which seeks a ban on U.S. imports of devices including the iPhone, iPad and Mac computers. 'Apple's unwillingness to work out a license leaves us little choice but to defend ourselves and our engineers' innovations,' Motorola Mobility said in an e-mailed statement."
Why not ban the two companies from doing business in the US until they iron out a deal?
Well Apple is evil so why can't we be too?
here we go again...
when will someone get the balls to hit the destruct button on the broken patent industry. I'm tired of reading about it, yet alone trying to keep abreast of it.
PS haven't RTFA but I am assuming this is another trivial software patent (although with MM there is a chance it is a valid hardware patent)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIrhVo1WA78
Google is good and would never sue anyone. I guess they are just looking for some more FRAND abuse smackdown.
Google will learn this is the worst 12.5b anyone ever spent.
If this were to succeed, just imagine the economic impact.
First, the Web 2.0 would collapse. Without Apple devices to participate in all sorts of useless "social media", the entire hipster culture would implode. This means Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, reddit and all of the other big names would be no more. (As a side-effect, there'd also be no further need for Ruby on Rails "developers" and NoSQL "experts" to build these kind of sites.)
If these hipsters aren't wasting time on web sites like those, or on trying to build the "next big startup", then they won't need to be sitting in Starbucks all day. Starbucks and its ilk could very well become the next victims!
Now you've got roving bands of hipsters on the loose, suffering severe withdrawal symptoms due to not having Apple devices in their possession, AND not having had any choco-latte-mochachinos lately. In uncontrolled outbursts, they lash out at their trust fund administrators. Stricken with fear after dealing with numerous crazed hipsters, these administrators flee their jobs, causing the financial sector to collapse into ruin.
The financial sector collapse causes economic ruin across the nation. There is no employment, imports eventually trail off, and people starve to death. Entire communities disappear, and their infrastructure crumbles. The country is destroyed.
I have some beer and chips left from the Samsung vs Apple case. But I'll buy a new couch for this one!
-- Cheers!
...the headline is all that anyone is going to read (here and elsewhere). And it's not good PR for Google.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
So this is just a retaliatory action by Google. Some great court showdown is gonna happen soon, Apple is likely to unite with Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle against their arch enemy Google. So this is gonna be fun to watch.
Isn't it about time that the patent trolls, legitimite patent holders, and the whole litigation industry built up around them were pimp-slapped into realizing that patents are not business models.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Just get rid of software patents. Get rid of them entirely. Invalidate all the current ones and stop issuing new software patents. They are essentially patents on math and certain long numbers, which is absurd.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Appleâ(TM)s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. Iâ(TM)m going to destroy Android, because itâ(TM)s a stolen product. Iâ(TM)m willing to go thermonuclear war on this."
"I don't want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it. I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, thatâ(TM)s all I want."
- Steve Jobs
Looks like Google's taken them up on the offer for war since the new Dictator is carrying out the same stupid plan. Hopefully this mutually assured destruction will get Apple to pull it's head out of it's ass. You don't stay rich giving all your money to lawyers. Would you simply acquiescing to the asshole's irrational demands? I wouldn't either.
I read the linked article. I don't see anywhere in it where it talks about a deal being reneged on. I only saw they they were going to loose some of their tax breaks.
"seven Motorola Mobility patents on features including location reminders, e-mail notification and phone/video players" -- doesn't sound very standards essential to me.
Maybe the thought of not being able to buy iPads and iPhones will wake up the U.S. to how badly screwed up the patent system is? Or maybe that thought will stop ITC from treating the case the same way it has treated cases against MotoGoogle.
The gloves are really off, the floodgates are open, the fat is on the fire etc. Although Google inherited cases from Motorola, this is the first time Google has directly sued Apple. Google has been reticent to take on Apple directly but they don't have much choice left now.
Interestingly, probably the sole patent victory for any Android manufacturer has been the ban on push e-mail from iCloud on Apple devices won by MotoGoogle, which still exists: http://www.tuaw.com/2012/04/13/apple-still-blocked-from-using-push-email-in-germany/
It is possible that a similar patent is among those involved here. Maybe the Motorola purchase wasn't as useless as Florian Muller makes it out to be...
ahh man that was so weird to read, but kinda satisfying to finally see apple get a taste of its own medicine.
'Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail'. Emerson
Best defence is good offence,
and this clearly makes sense.
Patents, copyrights, government protection of all of these things, what can possibly go wrong?
You can't handle the truth.
The article says that if they retain 2500 then they get the tax breaks: if they don't, they don't. They've clearly decided that the extra payroll isn't worth the breaks so they have chosen to give them up. That's the deal. Nothing is being "reneged" on. They are complying with the agreement.
IMHO such deals should not exist, but that's a seperate issue.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
... it's offense.
the ice cream licks back.
This reminds me of the line from the film Raging Bull by Martin Scorsese when Robert DeNiro, playing boxer Jake LaMotta, tells a thug, "Why don't I put the two of ya's in the ring together and watch you fuck each other?"
He was referring to a comment repeated that LaMotta's opponent was "pretty" because he hadn't taken hits to the face. LaMotta had responded "Yeah, he's so pretty I don't know whether to fight him or fuck him" and the thug had thought this was funny enough to repeat.
I don't know exactly what this has to do with the story of Apple and Google except it's amusing to see these two giants who ought to be fighting one another with honest competition trying to fuck each other with the same patent laws that are being used to fuck all of us.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I love many of the services google provides, but they were no less evil than any other corporation. Now if only people would wake up and realize large public corporations all give in to this behavior. It's how the game is played. Some corporations are more aggressive than others, but they all do it.
so i was wondering, when investors hear this news are thinking of tech like a future commodity? Are they buying and selling futures based upon information and not the company itself? It seems to me that when lawsuits became a source of revenue it no longer became about the company and products/services but the future impact of, in this case, an apple ban.
Apple has been playing hardball. Google's market cap is only like $220B. Apple, a much smaller company, now has a market cap of $600B+, and has $110B in cash. By the time this case gets moving, Apple will be able to buy Google lock, stock and barrel without breaking a sweat, and could conceivably close Google's doors and still weather the antitrust suits that would undoubtedly follow. Google might gain some ground in this battle with this case... they might, but they will lose the war. Whomever has more money wins every single time.
What do you want to bet that Google bought Motorola purely to do this - i.e., that they don't really care about making the hardware, and so are willing to gut Motorola,in order to sue Apple ?
Note that much of the Internet runs on RAND, and RAND terms can always be dropped against your attacker if you get sued. Look for a major countersuit from Apple.
It's to burn the competition to the ground. Its no different than any other large corporation wants to do. Its the way the world works. If you honestly believe its for anything less and somehow Google is the 'good guy' you are sadly deluding yourself.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
He sued the mac rumors website for talking about rumors for upcoming products. I believe it was over the G4 toaster design,
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Just make it rational and award them when they are truly deserving. Not just because you had an idea for a black box that does magic.
The concept of patent protection is a good thing, but how its being used in today's world is not.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Motorola Mobility did not renege on a deal. They are still moving from Libertyville to Chicago as planned. What they haven't done is maintained a high enough workforce to earn tax breaks.
According to the linked article you are led to believe that they are fighting over 'interoperability standards' ( with wifi )
If this is really what this is about, personally, i don't think a 'standard' should be patented or licensed. Once a standard like this is adopted by some governing body everyone gets access to it. Sure, have some sort of compatibility test so you can use the pretty logo, but its 100% free to everyone to see and implement on their own.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
For Google's a jolly good fellow, for Google's a jolly good fellow, for Google's a jolly good feeeeeelllloooowww!! Which apple fanbois try to deny!
I love waking up and seeing good news on slashdot!
They can keep doing what their lobbyist tell them and openly say that fuck law, they do what they want. Or they can recognize that there is something very rotten in all the patent bussiness. Banning Apple won't be an option for them.
Stepping back a bit, does it strike anyone else as extremely strange that we have a system in place in which the bodies that understand what they are doing (Google, Apple, Moto, etc.) turn to a body that doesn't (the courts) for decisions of can-or-cannot do?
Looks like a shoving match to me. (How many steps did I leave out?
Time to play the Apple game. I think this is a good idea, how about stopping the one company who's personal mission it is to cripple everyone else. Apple is the school yard bully and no one does anything to stop it, not the teachers, not the parents and not the principal, so maybe it's time that Apple gets put in timeout.
Apple has repeatedly refused to license the patents and instead continues to just use them without paying. Was anyone actually surprised to see this happen? The word inevitable comes to mind. Not that I am particularly in love with the patent system, but Apple enjoys suing everyone else for patent violations and then they turn around and blatantly do it themselves. Someone at apple has been taking their stupid pills on the reg.
At least somebody here gets it.
As long Motorola/Google gives this kind treatment to only Apple or maybe some world-famous patent troll companies.
--- An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
They are picking and choosing their sins.
EVERYONE picks and chooses their sins. Some people MAY choose to pick "all sins as dictated in the Bible", but that's no less "choosing sins" than anyone else. And, I know almost no one who actually selects "all sins as dictated in the Bible" as their sin list. There's some pretty archaic stuff in there.
Homosexual sex is considered a sin in the new testament as is heterosexual sin outside of a marriage as is adultery as is even lusting. So what kind of messed up logic do you people use that a guy fucking another guy up his ass is not immoral but adultery and sex before marriage are?
Under what kind of messed up logic must everyone's moral code be logically consistent with an arbitrarily selected book?
paintball
I wouldn't go that far, but Google's personality is one where it doesn't agressively go out to destroy the other party. I forget the exact words Steve Jobs used when talking about destroying Android, but if Google were equal with Apple in that respect, they would have done this LONG ago.
Global Thermal Nuclear War
eom
We need something much better to encourage innovation, something that is as fair and unobtrusive as possible. Above all, it must respect freedom.
OK so when an investor goes to invest in tech are they really investing in the company or is it more of a futures trade based upon patents and lawsuits? Knowing this company has X patent and will buy based upon future lawsuits then dump the stock before the outcome at a specific time. it seems like tech could be a commodity at some point right?
They copied the mouse from Xerox, they copied Y from Z.
Losers. I am SICK of Apple.
MX
Shouldn't SCO sue them both for violating its patent troll patent.
Too bad all the hipsters have moved onto Android since grandma started using iDevices a few years ago.
Gr8Apes (679165) wrote:
I do believe Google started the entire shebang by ripping off Apple's designs, or so says the lawsuits.
ALERT !!
Sock Puppet from Apple, Inc. Sighted !!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Funny how people went ballistic when Apple wanted to charge either $1 or 25 cents for Firewire, but now 2.5 % is considered "reasonable".
model of science argue exactly that—individual personalities (and indeed bodies) are the same kind of emergent order (hence behavior) that a company, or indeed a society is, at the abstract level. Just a giant information processing system that imports energy from connected systems and exports entropy; the particular characteristics are the emergent epiphenomena of the system.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Somebody is still butt hurt that Apple started using Intel processors...
"Can't we all just get along!"
Or what do you think? That all those ignorants and schizophrenics and primitives and religious would let YOU keep playing with your toys and b esides making it evident they are not worth the soil the eat on, from you? And let you win over India, China, Africa, Araby, Asia, Latinamerica, just because you can and they have to trail? ANd do this til their extinction? No! Make all the noise NOW that they have so many schizophrenics jumping on any word they hear and destroying it nicely without people noticing it.
And I'm the queen of English.