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Motorola Seeks Ban On Macs, iPads, and iPhones
bonch writes "Google-owned Motorola is asking the International Trade Commission to ban every Apple device that uses iMessage, based on a patent issued in 2006 for 'a system for providing continuity between messaging clients.' Motorola also claims that banning Macs and iPhones won't have an impact on U.S. consumers. They say, 'With so many participants in the highly competitive Wireless communication, portable music, and computer market, it is unlikely that consumers would experience much of an impact if the requested exclusion orders were obtained.' The ITC has yet to make a decision."
Stop this bullshit and direct your lawyers to lobby to change the laws on software patents instead. Don't you think your money would be better spent on innovation?
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This is becoming MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). Maybe that's the point. Maybe Motorolla is trying to teach Apple how to play Tic-Tac-Toe. Number of players: 0
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No, but they fired the first shot, now they are going to get hit by everything the other teams can find.
I believe the consensus is that Google acquired Motorola largely for its patents so it could counter-sue Apple and anybody else who has been aggressively suing Android products as a more or less defensive measure. If Google won't show that it'll fight back, Apple and anybody else who wants to will sue Android, or Android manufacturers, into oblivion.
I would say it's more of a way to get Apple to lay off suing Android device manufacturers for patent violation. If you have enough ammo in your patent war chest, no one's going to take pot shots at you. Certainly worked for IBM, anyways.
I don't know if this move is at least in a little part an attempt to get Apple to back off on suing Samsung (is that bit about an Apple device ban not effecting US consumers lifted from Apple v Samsung comments?), but it might do so anyways.
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Unless Google fights back, Apple will topple them. Pacifism is neat in theory, but it won't get you far in the business world. Google is guilty of nothing but self defense. If Apple stops trying to get Motorola phones banned and Google continues, THEN you can say they are guilty.
I am tired of this constant meme although I am not a big fan of Google.
What Google is doing is perfectly right from a moral, legal and commercial perspective. Apple started suing Android makers first(though Motorola beat them to the punch by a few weeks with a lawsuit and request for a declaration that it didn't infringe certain Apple patents after talks broke down). If Apple gets an injunction against Motorola for their silly patents over multitouch etc., Motorola will have to either stop selling handsets or pay $30 per phone which will kill their phones. Why should they not retaliate so that they have a chance of a negotiated settlement if that happens?
Also, big companies like Apple must be taught a lesson that if you start litigating, you should expect no mercy from the companies you're suing exploiting the exact same legal loopholes. If that's not done, other companies(except NPEs) will not think twice before suing competitors. Why should Google unilaterally disarm again? Just because they're your favorite company is for once on the receiving end of the same shit it is flinging all over everyone else? Motorola is not suing Samsung, HTC etc. here, but Apple is. Go figure out why
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Christ, can't we just start shooting all the lawyers and get this over with? The whole thing is an increasingly mad dash to innovation armageddon. I think no patent system at all would be better than the absurdities of this.
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I guess that's one of the risks if your company chooses to focus on creating and pushing absolutely identical clones of one product, instead of providing a range of devices with different options and hardware from competing manufacturers...it's an all the eggs = one basket kinda t'ing. If your device violates a patent...all your devices are likely to violate the same patent in the same way.
I don't understand your argument. Samsung has lots of products, not just absolutely identical clones of the iPhone and iPad.
Umm...sorry, I should have been more clear. I'm saying that Apple has a product line with absolutely no diversity allowed wherever possible, so naturally if their product violates one patent, the rest of their products are very likely to violate it as well. That's why Google can cry patent infringement across the entirety of the Appleverse, while Apple could only pick on a single product line from a particular manufacturer (more or less).
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I humbly submit a correction. All the FAT PIGS with huge moneybags for legal combat will tend to end at a standoff, but all the garage innovators will be shit out of luck. That is not a desirable outlook for the economy. Small and micro business is the lifeblood of an economy, and represents the hopes and dreams of the individual.
Except that Samsung thing is about actual technology theft. As in, literally stealing technology from Samsung (via ex-employees).
Apple, on the other hand, sued over rounded corners and icons in a grid. (You know, something my Samsung phone used in 2005. Long before the iPhone was released.)
This is, yet again, about actual technology, and not rounded corners. From the patent brief it sounds kind of silly (it sounds like they're talking about being logged into a chat with the same account via multiple clients), but it's still actual technology and not just "we arranged icons that contain rounded corners in a grid and so did they." It's hardly the same thing as Apple is doing.
I don't think anyone can out-evil Apple in this patent war. Apple hasn't invented a damned thing in the mobile space, but they've managed to patent the ridiculous since they're unable to compete on actual merit.
Samsung suing a competitor over allegedly poaching employees to steal trade secrets isn't quite the same thing.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Ok, I really meant to say successfully banned a few devices from one maker. None of those other things went anywhere.
Wait, so did Googorola successfully ban all Macs, iPhones and iPads according to the RTFA which is why you are getting so riled up about Google?
Not to mention that many of those Apple requests for injunctions are still pending and awaiting trials/judgements.
But that's being pedantic; fine, I'll say Apple is is attempting to ban every Android device form shipping just to make things easy.
So then, that puts them on parity with Google's level of evil.
Now can we complain about BOTH companies equally please an the patent law itself that enables this?
Sorry, no. Before Apple started suing the Android OEMs, there was a detente among them. Apple shot first, breaking the de facto peace between themselves and HTC/Samsung/Motorola.
If Microsoft sued Apple tomorrow over a kernel patent over iOS/OS X and Apple sued them back with 100 patents to retaliate because they think they might lose, you think they BOTH MS and Apple deserve equal blame because "the patent law itself enables this"?
They don't let you introduce your technology in to a standard like this unless you agree to make it available to everyone. Perhaps in the future, IEEE should require people to turn over their patents as a condition for inclusion in order to prevent this kind of nonsense.
Generally, the one who fires the first shot is the attacker and the one who fires second is the defender. Opinion holder-neutral definition.
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It has been solidly proven that Apple copied every else on the iPhone, stop repeating the same lies over and over and over again. This is not an Apple political forum. The patents were bullshit and everybody knows it, simply a straight up delaying tactic to keep competing products out of the market for as long as possible. You are not seeing the counter business tactic, cripple Apple's access to the market to accelerate 'competing', read that. 'competing' products access to the market. It's all about consumer choice not some bullshit Apple monopoly.
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