Microsoft Sues Motorola Over Mapping Patents

jfruh writes "The mobile patent wars continue, with two of the world's biggest tech companies about to blunder into direct conflict. Microsoft holds a number of patents that it claims give it rights over mobile map applications that overlay data from multiple databases (map info from one database and store location info from another, for instance). Many Android vendors already pay Redmond licensing fees for their mapping apps; now Redmond is going to court in Germany to sue one of the holdouts: Motorola Mobility, which is of course owned by Google."

Comments

Apple + Microsoft

[should_be_linear]

Owners of "Sore losers" patent pool.

Re:Apple + Microsoft

[poetmatt]

Owners of the "how dare you compete with us?" pool, you mean. Same thing though. Does MS realize how quickly this will backfire? You know they're only using German courts to avoid publicity and pull an East Texas, which is not going to happen here.

Google + Samsung

[Anonymous Coward]

Owners of the "why innovate when we can just rip-off someone else" research and development team.

Re:Google + Samsung

[binarylarry]

Google + Samsung better be careful, I think Microsoft has business patents on that technique!

Obviousness

[Anonymous Coward]

> map applications that overlay data from multiple databases

Sounds blatantly obvious to someone skilled in the art...

Re:Obviousness

[shugah]

It you take the "using a mobile computing device" stuff out of the patent it comes down to looking up an address in a directory (such as the Yellow Pages) and overlaying that on a map. Sounds pretty obvious.

Re:Obviousness

[PPH]

Evans & Sutherland was building tactical displays for the defense department that did this in the 1970s and 1980s.

Re:I've got a solution for all these software pate

[newyorkdude]

I've got a solution for the whole shebang. Sue the USPTO every time a court rules they issued a bad patent - it's they who screw up the most, after all. Pretty soon they'll have no money left and will either shut down or will make each patent application a 100 million dollars.

Re:I've got a solution for all these software pate

[retchdog]

wow, you're a genius! no one's ever thought of that before.

``Circumstantial proof that the person accused of inducing infringement knew of the patent, and knew that his or her activities would lead to infringement of the patent is generally sufficient to establish the requisite intent.''

Why Germany?

[strength_of_10_men]

Does anyone know why two American companies are suing each other in Germany? Are these German patents?

And why bother suing in Germany when the US courts apparently think that they have jurisdiction in Germany too.

Re:Why Germany?

[slew]

Does anyone know why two American companies are suing each other in Germany? Are these German patents?

Two reasons that I can think of...

1. The patent in question is european (although it appears to be also filed as a US patent as well).
2. The law firm they are using, Bardehle Pagenberg, has apparently won more injunctions against Android than any other law firm in the world.

AFAIK, the patent in question actually came into Microsoft's possession after it purchased Multimap.com (a UK based company) back in 2007, which jives with the european flavor of this dispute.

 

"No software patents in Europe"

[amorsen]

As soon as someone sells hardware along with the software, software patents turn into hardware patents and then you can sue even in Europe. It's magic!

Pretty Much How It Happened

[eldavojohn]

> map applications that overlay data from multiple databases

Sounds blatantly obvious to someone skilled in the art...

Microsoft Engineer 1: Jesus, dude look at this, look at this idea I had!
Microsoft Engineer 2: I don't get it, what am I looking at here, this C# code is light years beyond my comprehension.
Microsoft Engineer 1: I know, right? But here, let me step you through it. You remember how we were pulling data from one database and displaying it?
Microsoft Engineer 2: Yeah, that itself is, like, on par with the gods ...
Microsoft Engineer 1: Right right but it got me to thinking ... what if -- and stay with me here -- what if we pulled map data from two different databases.
Microsoft Engineer 2: No way dude, that's impossible. Look, we use one prepared statement here to get the data ... what you're talking about would require something like ...
Microsoft Engineer 1: Two prepared statements?
Microsoft Engineer 2: Oh. My. God. It could work ... no, wait, even then we've only got one database connection in the code. That's it, from there you're stuck, you'd have to send both the prepared statements to the database ... unless ... wait, hold the phone ... unless you had ...
Microsoft Engineer 1: Two database connections?
Microsoft Engineer 2: *starts shaking his hands in the air excitedly* Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, this is going to be a game changer. We better tell Ballmer -- quick, get the patent officers on the phone, this is fuckin' huge!

Re:Pretty Much How It Happened

[Skinny Rav]

Not to mention that most GIS systems have been doing exactly this for decades. The GRASS system, for example, an open source, open GIS system that existed in the early 80s when Microsoft hadn't started selling MS-DOS yet.

But now it is on a smartphone or a tablet!

Re:I've got a solution for all these software pate

[bogaboga]

This won't fly. "Special software updates" have been around for a very long time. In fact, Apple's rubber-banding patent can still be put in place on non iOS phones as I write this.

The party that would be sued does not have to do anything. Updates are being done now to enable so many features that would otherwise be problematic out of the box.

Remember, wer're talking about open source software here.

Re:I've got a solution for all these software pate

[alexgieg]

However, on the same track, could they offer the "updates" as paid options that cost exactly the amount that Apple/MS/fill-in-the-blank-patent-holder requires for licensing?

That would be fun. Just imagine what the app store would look like:

Apple iBoooing: $1
Microsoft Your Map As It Should Be: $1
Amazon ONE Click, Not TWO: $1
Motorola CALLR - Your phone, able to call other phones!: $1

It'd be amazing. In a creepy, distopian way. But amazing nevertheless.

Re:Critical Mass

[ilsaloving]

We can only hope. If we're lucky they'll all destroy themselves, and room can be made for new people that want to actually, you know, innovate.

This explains why Apple dropped google maps

[walterbyrd]

PJ from Groklaw:

There really does seem to be coordination between Microsoft and Apple to destroy Google and Android or at least control it and get money from it. Blech. Any legal system that would allow the best maps service to be blocked so an inferior one can get money for a patent needs to be changed, because it has forgotten totally about the public interest. Shame on Microsoft. And shame on Apple.