Motorola Ordered To Recall Android Phones and Tablets In Germany

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Motorola Ordered To Recall Android Phones and Tablets In Germany

Posted by Soulskill on Friday September 14, 2012 @05:01AM from the continuing-to-go-thermonuclear dept.

puddingebola sends word of a German court decision yesterday which found that Google's Motorola Mobility must recall all of its Android tablets and phones that infringe on Apple's patent for "rubber-band" scrolling. From the Guardian: "The dramatic decision, the latest in an escalating war between Apple and the smartphone and set-top box company MMI, follows earlier cases in which Apple had to disable automatic "push" delivery of email to its iPhone and iPads after MMI won a separate patent fight in Germany. The recall will not take effect immediately because Apple will have to request a ban on specific products and provide a €25m (£20m) bond, while MMI can appeal. However, the court indicated that it was unlikely that an appeal against the validity of the patent would succeed. MMI, with Google's backing, is expected to continue the appeal. The court also ruled that MMI owed Apple damages for past infringement."

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Stop supporting APPLE!! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 05:09 · Score: 5, Insightful

Get a clue people. Apple just wants to corner the market and stop consumers of having choices, that are cheaper than theirs. WAKE UP STUPID PEOPLE!...
Stop buying Apple products...
1. Re:Stop supporting APPLE!! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 05:24 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  This isn't an Apple problem, this is a patent problem.
  Google and Motorolla would enforce this patent on Apple if they happened to own it. They already enforced another equally trivial patent on push email, so that Apple devices can't use it in Germany.
  These sorts of concepts are NOT novel and unique and should NOT be patented.
  To use a car analogy, It's like going back in time 100 years and patenting "wheels made of rubber" and "automobiles that exhaust fumes to the air" and "the use of heating elements to warm a car interior" etc etc etc.
  Not practical and counter to innovation.
  Sad sad sad.
2. Re:Stop supporting APPLE!! by Nerdfest · 2012-09-14 05:34 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Look at the patent is question. It's an idea, not an implementation. I don't imagine Motorola copied Apple's code to implement it. This is the problem with software patents. Even if Motorola's implementation is vastly more efficient ... still 'infringing'.
3. Re:Stop supporting APPLE!! by gnasher719 · 2012-09-14 05:48 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Look at the patent is question. It's an idea, not an implementation. I don't imagine Motorola copied Apple's code to implement it. This is the problem with software patents. Even if Motorola's implementation is vastly more efficient ... still 'infringing'.
  It's not an "idea". It is a user interface element that gives users intuitable feedback about what is happening, and that user interface element didn't exist before Apple invented it. And I thought by now anyone would know that for patents it doesn't matter whether you copy someone else's implementation, what matters is that your implementation does the same thing.
4. Re:Stop supporting APPLE!! by lunatic1969 · 2012-09-14 05:55 · Score: 2
  
  The problem is, this is a game everybody is playing and we can't seem to make it stop. The only hope as I see it is to encourage these lawsuits. Sue everyone, sue frequently. Let the corporations bleed tons and tons of money. When the corporations decide it's a bad idea because they've gone broke, things will change -- they won't change until then.
5. Re:Stop supporting APPLE!! by N0Man74 · 2012-09-14 06:05 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  It is an idea. Patents aren't supposed to cover the result, but rather the implementation or the process of achieving that result. That process should be more specific than "with a smart phone".
6. Re:Stop supporting APPLE!! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 06:08 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Actually, you can very easily. Any movies that you buy (not rent) on Play can permanently be downloaded to your device. You just click on the little push-pin icon and it will be downloaded and stored. I currently have 4 movies from Google play on my Nexus 7 and Asus Transformer that I can watch anytime, anywhere.
  I also have 13 movies available from Flixster/Ultraviolet on my tablets because I started using them first.
7. Re:Stop supporting APPLE!! by makomk · 2012-09-14 06:22 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Actually, the user interface element in question did exist before Apple "invented" it, it's just that it hadn't been used on touchscreen phones or tablets yet because they didn't actually exist (and neither did the technology required to make them). In fact, all of the iPhone and iPod user interface elements Apple has patents on were originally invented by someone else.
8. Re:Stop supporting APPLE!! by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 06:32 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  This is an Apple problem. They are terrified of consumers having a choice, and they are systematically using trivial enhancements to existing idea as ammunition to block alternative products.
  They could quite easily stock pile their silly little patents and use them as an arsenal against patent trolls that come after them. They don't have to remove other companies' products from markets.
  It really is foolish. There might be some short term gains, but the customer will change their minds down the road, it's already happening. Sony are nothing like they used to be thanks to their attitude. Apple are accelerating down the same path.
9. Re:Stop supporting APPLE!! by shutdown+-p+now · 2012-09-14 06:33 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Google and Motorolla would enforce this patent on Apple if they happened to own it. They already enforced another equally trivial patent on push email, so that Apple devices can't use it in Germany.
  Except that Google and Motorola have only started to enforce their patents against Apple after Apple started to sue every Android manufacturer in sight.
10. Re:Stop supporting APPLE!! by SternisheFan · 2012-09-14 06:49 · Score: 2
  
  You know what pi**es me off about Apple and their new propietary connectors? Turns out the iphone5 that they sell in Europe comes with a USB adaptor piece, while in other parts of the world people will have to buy all new chargers, cabling, buy new alarm clocks, etc. So apple has always had the ability to have USB connection to transmit data, they're just taking Apple users for a money grab ride. That's why their devices have no SDminicard capability, you're forced to buy their overpriced, prone to breakage, connector cables. Why won't Apple offer that USB connector in the U.S.? Because their customers are 'trained' and resigned to having to buy Apple chargers over and over again? May be...
11. Re:Stop supporting APPLE!! by shine · 2012-09-14 06:54 · Score: 2
  
  I gots me a patent on incrementing a counter by 1, does that count (no pun intended).
12. Re:Stop supporting APPLE!! by SternisheFan · 2012-09-14 07:33 · Score: 2
  
  EU law requires phones to be chargeable via microUSB. US law does not. Are you also pissed off that Apple charges more in the EU than they do in the US?
  Yeah, I know about the universal charger law made in Europe made to curb enviornmental waste, makes a lot of sense and should be made law the world over. As an Android user, nothing Apple does affects my life personally anyways. It's that all you hear about nowadays is Apple crying like a 3 year old in courts, "Waah! He's coloring with my crayon! Make him stop mommy!" Honestly, there are REAL problems in this world that courts can't get to because some kid in the sandbox is always throwing sand at the other kids. This suing over minutia crap has gotten real old. I'd ground my kid if he ever acted the way this Apple company acts,don't have to because he's older than a four year old and knows better.
13. Re:Stop supporting APPLE!! by Plumpaquatsch · 2012-09-14 08:36 · Score: 2
  
  It's for the best. Android phones are full of malware. So this will make germany a little safer.
  Well, since nobody buys Motorola device in Germany either - not really.
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
14. Re:Stop supporting APPLE!! by knarf · 2012-09-14 08:37 · Score: 2
  
  This isn't an Apple problem, this is a patent problem.
  This is both an Apple problem as well as a patent problem.
  Many companies which are active in the same business as Apple have been able to do what Apple is now trying to do - block competition by abusing the braindead patent system. The difference between those many companies and Apple is that the majority of them have not stooped so low as Apple in their abuse of the system. Those companies which did use patents against Apple did so only after Apple fired the initial shots.
  Mind you, I'm talking about 'real' companies here, not about patent trolls. Patent trolls stand to companies like tumours stand to organs.
  Apple is a patent lowlife. The dysfunctional patent system makes it possible for them to try to push competition out of the market by claiming sole proprietorship of basic building blocks of whatever field they want to claim for themselves.
  A bad system abused by a bad company.
  
  --
  --frank[at]unternet.org
Sense? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 05:10 · Score: 5, Insightful

So they are forced to recall their devices because of a GUI animation effect? How the hell is that proportionate? Was that a major advertised feature or something?
1. Re:Sense? by edxwelch · 2012-09-14 05:25 · Score: 2
  
  A company holding the patent for button pressed / unpressed animation could theoretically prevent all software in existance from being sold.
2. Re:Sense? by EdIII · 2012-09-14 06:04 · Score: 2
  
  How the hell does a recall even work? Does the customer get compensated? Is it just the government stealing property from the citizens?
  I understand a recall in the auto industry, but that seems to be voluntary on the part of the consumer. If this is voluntary then it is hilarious. Does the judge think people will just give up their property without a fight and go purchase Apple products?
3. Re:Sense? by Plumpaquatsch · 2012-09-14 08:45 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The judge probably has no clue the "stolen" feature copied from Apple can be disabled with a software update.
  
  You are telling me that Motorola could have avoided the decision long before the judge began deliberation by simply updating the software? And that that inaction makes Motorola's violation of the patent less of an issue?
  
  --
  Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Bounce is obvious to any engineer by Solandri · 2012-09-14 05:25 · Score: 5, Interesting

Any engineer worth his salt was taught about the time response of second order linear systems - spring, mass, damper. The scroll bounce is just the transient response of such a system to a step function when tuned to be slightly underdamped (light blue line in the figure).

It's obvious as hell and the only reason I can fathom why it's being upheld is because its merits are being judged by people who are clueless about math or engineering. This is as bad as the XOR cursor patent, which was also a patent on the graphical representation of a function widely known and commonly used in the respective industry.
1. Re:Bounce is obvious to any engineer by mclaincausey · 2012-09-14 05:42 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I am not an IP advocate, but I'm not sure that logic applies. Just because something is obvious in the physical domain, applying it to a control on a device isn't also obvious necessarily... it's not a skeumorphism for a spring or something, for example, which might make this connection less tenuous. Not defending the IP or IP-based attack, just don't necessarily trust your rationale for saying it's an obvious invention.
  
  --
  (%i1) factor(777353); (%o1) 777353
2. Re:Bounce is obvious to any engineer by lexman098 · 2012-09-14 06:38 · Score: 2
  
  Those were not touch screens though where the idea tends to be that you're physically manipulating simulated objects with your finger. This "obviously" leads to more simulation of basic physics principles.
  Think of it another way: Motorola might have to recall their phones because their shit goes "bounce" when it scrolls. It's intuitively ludicrous without any logical deduction.
3. Re:Bounce is obvious to any engineer by Threni · 2012-09-14 06:47 · Score: 2
  
  > Just because something is obvious in the physical domain, applying it to a control on a device isn't also
  > obvious necessarily
  Sure it is. You just go `i'll do a code version of that`. You see slide-to-unlock on a front door - you do a code version of it. What's not obvious about it? Even if you argue that the first instance of something from the real world being copied on a computer is original and not obvious, the second you see it you should go `ah, yes, I can model other computer visual phenomena on physica, real-word events/objects`.
  I wouldn't mind if patents lasted one year, or the fine for breaching them for Â£50 or something. You can't pull a companies products from market from something obvious and simple. It's just wrong.
Too much by hawguy · 2012-09-14 05:35 · Score: 5, Funny

Geeze, first I thought I had to buy Samsung products to support them in their fight against Apple, now I have to buy MMI products too? I'm going to go broke trying to support companies that anger Apple. Maybe it's cheaper and easier to just go to the dark side and buy an iPhone and move into the Apple Ecosystem.
1. Re:Too much by toriver · 2012-09-14 06:29 · Score: 2
  
  You can justify it by saying you are buying an iPhone to support Apple in their fight against Motorola?
Re:Theft? by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 05:37 · Score: 2, Funny

That is the beauty of it, friend AC. The Apple has transcended the need for good will. They are The Apple. They have become the Alpha and the Omega. There is no longer any dark before time, or any scary after time. There is only The Apple. All what remains is the extermination of all heretical followers of the Green Beast, and then the Rounded-Corner Age of iGlory may begin.
Give yourself to The Apple. The Apple is your friend and mine.
IP is clearly killing healthy gadget evolution by klek · 2012-09-14 05:47 · Score: 5, Insightful

All these microscopic patents on tiny "innovations" are preventing the positive evolution of excellent devices. Our devices should be getting better (easier to use, more capable, etc) by using the earlier innovations that truly work better. Yet these copyright battles force companies to create clunky workarounds... Windows GUI is a great example. Why can't we find a way to credit the creator, and still make the best and widespread use of the innovation? Gaah!
George Selden by tepples · 2012-09-14 05:49 · Score: 4, Informative

To use a car analogy, It's like going back in time 100 years and patenting [...] "automobiles that exhaust fumes to the air"
Except George Selden patented exactly that.
1. Re:George Selden by Anonymous Coward · 2012-09-14 06:59 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  The Wright brothers also patented everything they could involving aircraft, including ideas first implemented by Chanute & Lilienthal. As a result, American aviation withered for a quarter of a century until the Wrights were forced to place their patents into a common pool.
Even if Apple removed every competitor... by blind+biker · 2012-09-14 06:39 · Score: 2

Even if Apple removed every competitor from the market, I'm not buying any of their products. I don't want to turn into a moron.

--
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
Re:No more IPJ! by Paradise+Pete · 2012-09-14 07:58 · Score: 2

Cross-license and move on..
It will eventually settle down to that. This happens over and over again any time there's a new frontier. The telephone, railroads, electricity, sewing machines, automobiles, revolvers, farm equipment, etc.
It starts with patent battles that at first seem reasonable that become more and more absurd over time. Once it begins it gathers its own momentum until there's no good way to stop it.