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Judge Invalidates 13 Motorola Patent Claims Against Microsoft
walterbyrd writes "Microsoft scored a victory against Google-owned Motorola Mobility this week after a judge scrapped 13 of the latter party's patent claims in a years-long dispute over H.264-related royalties. Waged in U.S. and German courts, the battle involves three patents (7,310,374, 7,310,375, and 7,310,376) that Motorola licenses to Microsoft for several products, including the Xbox 360, Windows and Windows Phone. PJ is commenting on the case over at Groklaw.net."
Some claims within the patents were invalidated.
Go RTFA.
New mod option wanted: -1 DrunkenRambling
Software patents are so problematic because if you expose your essential algorithm which uses code blocks then all someone has to do is code to it with different variable names.
No that's copyright that covers variable names, and you'd have to do a lot more than just change variable names to make it an original work. Patents will cover the algorithm itself regardless of variable names or even implementation language.
It is the same problem as why technology stagnated during the times before the renaissance and then industrial revolution, methods were kept secret by guilds. ... too much software is granted "a Royal Monopoly" like status. Because that status can then be horded we are headed for a technological dark age.
What a load of bullshit. It was patents that opened up the guild secrets, by allowing guilds to make inventions known without competitors being able to take advantage of that. It's the lack of patent enforcement in China and the lack of software patents in most of the world that is keeping software like Google's locked up in the cloud. What's their current search algorithm? What AI breakthroughs do they secret away? We may never know because the inventions they value the most they don't even patent, they can't be used against them.
Parent post makes no sense. If you work on closed-source code and you are against software patents then you are pro-guild, pro-dark ages.
HTC's problems werent from Microsoft.. HTC was the target of the opening salvo of mobile patent lawsuits, initiated by Apple.
When the first wave of the mobile lawsuit armageddon geared up, the three companies distinctly absent from either end of these lawsuits were Google, Palm, and Microsoft (citation.)
To accuse Microsoft of being somehow a big offender is ignoring the history of these battles. Patent lawsuits wasn't how Microsoft operated, and to a large extent still isn't because nearly every lawsuit that targets Microsoft or is initiated by Microsoft ends in a (cross)licensing deal rather than a judgment and that includes Microsoft taking the short end of it (ex: licensing from Acacia Research.)
I do understand that Microsoft is one of the only companies that have gone after Linux, and its probably unforgivable, but that doesnt make them one of the big offenders in mobile patent lawsuits. Making that claim just doesnt hold up to reality.
"His name was James Damore."
I consider Groklaw to be an extremely reliable source of fact, insight and opinion. The patents are NOT invalidated, but the claims cited within are. It's a software patent, after all.