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iPhone Infringes On Sony, Nokia Patents, Says Federal Jury
snydeq writes "A federal jury in Delaware has found Apple's iPhone infringes on three patents held by MobileMedia, a patent-holding company formed by Sony, Nokia and MPEG LA, InfoWorld reports. The jury found that the iPhone directly infringed U.S. patent 6,070,068, which was issued to Sony and covers a method for controlling the connecting state of a call, U.S. patent 6,253,075, which covers call rejection, and U.S. patent 6,427,078, which covers a data processing device. MobileMedia has garnered the unflattering descriptor "patent troll" from some observers. The company, which was formed in 2010, holds some 300 patents in all."
. . . die by the sword. I hate Sony with the heat of a thousand suns, but would love to see them make Apple write an eight figure check.
patent 6,070,068, which was issued to Sony and covers a method for controlling the connecting state of a call
patent 6,253,075, which covers call rejection
patent 6,427,078, which covers a data processing device
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
is all of this going to reach critical mass and blow up in their faces???
A bullet may have your name on it, but artillery is addressed to " Whom It May concern"
is there really a debate about if MobileMedia is a patent troll?
They hold patents. Check.
Specifically formed to sue other companies for patent infringement. Check
They don't make a single product or use their patents in any way. Check.
Definitely a patent troll. There is no debate.
I get it.. you hate Apple. But don't pretend like these assholes are suddenly good for everyone.
Patents will be the downfall of our society as they are currently implemented.
This is ridiculous. Apple invented the patent! How could they infringe on one?
Is so broad as to cover everything like a computer, but smaller.
From the actual patent:
I'm sorry, but that's Von Neumann architecture with some form of camera attached.
Since it starts with the definition of work-station and then simply says it is hand held, it basically is one of those "with a computer" (or in this case cell phone) patents.
I'm not going to go through each of the claims on the patent, but I'm not seeing anything in here that sounds like an invention -- just a description of a small computer with its own display. Which to me, means this patent should have never been granted.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Every phone I've ever used has a method to reject a call. Lame.
... It's about time!
Overall I detest patent trolls for their detrimental effects on innovation and the US economy, but it'll bet if Apple wasn't so aggressive in their own patent troll behaviour this suit probably would never have happened.
IncomingNumber := GetIncomingCallNumber(); := SearchRejectedNumbersList(IncomingNumber);
RejectCall
If (RejectCall)
RejectIncomingCall();
else
AnswerIncomingCall();
There I just wrote the code to reject incoming calls if the number is in the rejected numbers list. How is this patentable?
If I disagree with you it's because you are wrong.
Aw, another butthurt Apple fanboy with a persecution complex. But don't let me stop you from acting like the whole world is against poor little innocent Apple.
Or perhaps I will. After all, Apple teamed up with Microsoft and RIM to buy Nortel's patents, and then used that to form their own patent mega-troll called the "Rockstar Consortium." And their only reason for existing is to attack Android.
But by all means, go back to whining about how everyone is picking on poor, innocent Apple.
Apple is a the biggest patent troll.
I hope they die from the same weapon they started the fight with.
Wealthy corporations consider patent litigation to be a cost of doing business. They are happy to accept the risk of being victimized by a patent lawsuit from another wealthy corporation, in return for the ability to squash any-and-every small upstart that might threaten their empire.
Fellow wealthy corporations are generally not a threat to one another. Even when in the same market space, they just form cartel arrangements, pay each other licence fees, and jointly dominate the market. The only real threat they face are young individuals with novel ideas forming small/nimble businesses that totally upset the existing market landscape. The fact that the ability to build such businesses is the foundation of the American dream (and very good for the economy) means nothing. All they care about is protecting them and theirs from such threats, and patent law does an excellent job of that.
To those who object that small businesses can get patents too: realize that having a patent means jack squat if you don't have the financial resources to afford the patent litigation. Small businesses never do, whether they own any patents or not.
It's back by companies who actually use the patents.
Fanbois on both sides are about to hit this thread in 3, 2, 1, ... /popcorn
I want to side with Apple on this, the patents themselves seem ridiculous. But Apple has misbehaved in exactly the same manner, for the same absurdly ridiculous details. It's apparent that it's not about the individual patents, it's a full-on mud wrestle.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
A plague a' all their houses!
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Sux to be the US.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Given Apple's current stances on these very issues, I don't expect they're going to get a lot of sympathy here
Yet beyond the mere satisfaction of seeing the bully take a couple, it does highlight how inherently flawed the patent system has become, and that whether copyrights, patents or trademarks, it's all become so lawyered up as to defeat the very purpose of these limited protections.
That it arguably poisons the well for the rest of us and human innovation at large is something future generations are going to have to come to grips with; in the meantime as I don't see any short-term end in sight. Not a good time to be a start-up in that space.
Memorable quotes for
Looker (1981)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082677/quotes
"John Reston: Television can control public opinion more effectively than armies of secret police, because television is entirely voluntary. The American government forces our children to attend school, but nobody forces them to watch T.V. Americans of all ages *submit* to television. Television is the American ideal. Persuasion without coercion. Nobody makes us watch. Who could have predicted that a *free* people would voluntarily spend one fifth of their lives sitting in front of a *box* with pictures? Fifteen years sitting in prison is punishment. But 15 years sitting in front of a television set is entertainment. And the average American now spends more than one and a half years of his life just watching television commercials. Fifty minutes, every day of his life, watching commercials. Now, that's power."
##
"The United States has it's own propaganda, but it's very effective because people don't realize that it's propaganda. And it's subtle, but it's actually a much stronger propaganda machine than the Nazis had but it's funded in a different way. With the Nazis it was funded by the government, but in the United States, it's funded by corporations and corporations they only want things to happen that will make people want to buy stuff. So whatever that is, then that is considered okay and good, but that doesn't necessarily mean it really serves people's thinking - it can stupify and make not very good things happen."
- Crispin Glover: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000417/bio
##
"It's only logical to assume that conspiracies are everywhere, because that's what people do. They conspire. If you can't get the message, get the man." - Mel Gibson (from an interview)
##
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William Casey, CIA Director
##
"The real reason for the official secrecy, in most instances, is not to keep the opposition (the CIA's euphemistic term for the enemy) from knowing what is going on; the enemy usually does know. The basic reason for governmental secrecy is to keep you, the American public, from knowing - for you, too, are considered the opposition, or enemy - so that you cannot interfere. When the public does not know what the government or the CIA is doing, it cannot voice its approval or disapproval of their actions. In fact, they can even lie to your about what they are doing or have done, and you will not know it. As for the second advantage, despite frequent suggestion that the CIA is a rogue elephant, the truth is that the agency functions at the direction of and in response to the office of the president. All of its major clandestine operations are carried out with the direct approval of or on direct orders from the White House. The CIA is a secret tool of the president - every president. And every president since Truman has lied to the American people in order to protect the agency. When lies have failed, it has been the duty of the CIA to take the blame for the president, thus protecting him. This is known in the business as "plausible denial." The CIA, functioning as a secret instrument of the U.S. government and the presidency, has long misused and abused history and continues to do so."
- Victor Marchetti, Propaganda and Disinformation: How the CIA Manufactures History
##
George Carlin:
"The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they're an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehous
Actually, it's been bad to be a startup for awhile. You can't invent any one thing, then bring it to market without stepping on 100's of patents at least, if it is significant - and why bother if it's not? Your one measly patent has no hope against a well-lawyer armed adversary who wants to lawyer you into the ground and steal your one patent from you in bankruptcy. You need a portfolio of 100's to 1000's of patents to get them interested in cross licensing. No startup can generate that.
I was a business owner (software dev for customers), then a VC. I've had to give up both, it's just too dangerous out there to be creative.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
Because when someone else sues *Apple*, they're a "patent troll".
But when *Apple* does the same thing in suing others, they're just "protecting innovation".
Ow. Need to see an ophthalmologist now. I just rolled my eyes so hard I strained something.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The vast quantities of trivial shit of no value being granted patents is breathtaking.. I suspect the system is working as intended.
Lawyers protecting their cash cows.
Large corporations artifically inflating barrier to entry.
Institutionalized corruption in which everyone except the consumer wins.
MobileMedia has garnered the unflattering descriptor "patent troll" from some observers.
MobileMedia licenses patents held by Sony, Nokia, and MPEG LA. MPEG LA in turn licenses tech developed by global giants in manufacturing and R&D like Cisco, Mitsubishi, NTT, Philips, Samsung, Toshiba and so on. It is idiotic to argue that these guys don't make product or that their contributions to the evolution of mobile technologies are trivial.
Where patent trolls are evil!!! ... unless they are suing Apple.
Strong convictions there, boys.
Famous last words of "players"...
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.groklaw.net/pdf3/ApplevSamsung-1675ExC.pdf. Rectangular, rounded corners, "minimalist design".
In regards to Apple and its own Patent Trolling: Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.
That is not the only way. The more probable approach is that the next round of "standards" won't be, that corps involved (e.g., Motorola, Samsung, Sony, and others who are usually involved in actual R&D) will patent the hell out of everything, and this time no Mr. FRAND Nice Guy. Everyone will know Apple is the enemy unwilling to share its toys in the sandbox, and no one will let Apple play. Apple gets squashed out of the market, and it's a lesson to the next company who wants to try the same approach.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I can't feel sorry for Apple here.
The fact is the idiocy of the patent world is disgusting and is orthogonal to the amount of grief Apple deserve for their actions.
You let your faux outrage blind you to the GPP closing comment:
"Consequently it's ridiculous."
Which ANSWERS YOUR FUCKING QUESTION.
Really, apple fanbois are butthurt so much they can't even manage to read the last fucking line before going all Steve Jobs Histrionics...?
I read the first patent. I could make a shoe with a cell phone in it and they could sue me on it. I hope Apple takes it all the way to the wire and tears them a new one.
I knew there was a reason I didn't like Sony, now I have proof.
Patent was supposed to protect inventions that physically exist, not vapor and certainly not subtle variations on a product that has existed for a long time. I can't think of a single thing related to cell phones that could possibly be new enough to constitute an invention. Abolishing patent outright would be a good thing.
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