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Nokia Officially Lists Patents Google's VP8 Allegedly Infringes
An anonymous reader writes "Google just settled video codec patent claims with MPEG LA and its VP8 format, which it wants to be elevated to an Internet standard, already faces the next round of patent infringement allegations. Nokia submitted an IPR declaration to the Internet Engineering Task Force listing 64 issued patents and 22 pending patent applications it believes are essential to VP8. To add insult to injury, Nokia's declaration to the IETF says NO to royalty-free licensing and also NO to FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) licensing. Nokia reserves the right to sue over VP8 and to seek sales bans without necessarily negotiating a license deal. Two of the 86 declared IPRs are already being asserted in Mannheim, Germany, where Nokia is suing HTC in numerous patent infringement cases. A first VP8-related trial took place on March 8 and the next one is scheduled for June 14. In related Nokia-Google patent news, the Finns are trying to obtain a U.S. import ban against HTC to force it to disable tethering (or, more likely, to pay up)."
There seems to be a lot of confusion about what MPEG LA is and isn't. They're a patent pool. They don't own any patents themselves, they just make it simple to license out a large basket of many (but not all) H.264 patents (one of the conditions is that you also put your own H.264 patents into the pool). You could go out and negotiate patent licenses from the original holders if so inclined.
So they are a convenience method for patent trolls. The older, craggier, the Troll, have enough to sue on their own.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
Microsoft is pulling Nokia's strings. They're the MS attack team's heir apparent to SCO.
This one will play out over as many years as the SCO FUD machine did.
It won't work in the long term either. Microsoft has no strategic partners, only strategic victims.
Except for Dell, Lenovo, Acer, Samsung, HP who made and continue to make tens of billions by being Microsoft's partners. Stop this revisionist simplistic nonsense, please.
This space for rent.
This fine habit amongst fosstards that you guys are displaying here is one of the reasons I started to hate you and root for big proprietary companies, like MS, Adobe... I used to appreciate free software's goals, but now I just want *you fanboys* to feel anguish and despair, so I actually rejoice when something gets wrong.
When reality doesn't suit your beliefs, you just deny it, or try to shoot the messenger. Everybody who doesn't agree with your religion is a troll, shill or idiot. Grow up, kids!It's so embarassing to observe you freetards.
You guys literally made me feel disgust and hate towards free software. Back in 2006, I was actually a user of OpenSUSE... but seeing your kind filling the internet with crap all the time, you really made me bitter.