Slashdot Mirror
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)."
So Nokia apparently has some trash "routing data from one network to another ON A MOBILE DEVICE" patent, and Florian Mueller is breathless about it. What's new?
"What Nokia is doing here is simply the normal course of business if a patent holder (Nokia) does not share the vision of another company (Google) with respect to a proposed standard and reserves all rights. What motivation could Nokia possibly have to donate something to a Google initiative? None. No motivation, no obligation, no license. Simple as that"
quoted from http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/03/setback-for-googles-vp8-nokia-refuses.html
Microsoft. Basically, when Elop took over, Nokia became an MS Vassal. That's when they dumped the world's most popular phone OS and their internal modern OS development projects for Windows Phone, and why Windows Phone ads use Nokia phones. It's basically the same play they ran when they got SGI to start building NT workstations. And, not that far off from the investments in SCO to enable the fight against Linux. Note that the MS Vassal is actively using their patent portfolio specifically to fight one of Google's strategic plays, despite the fact that a phone vendor that has given up on OS development would probably do much better if they added Android to their phone portfolio.
Almost every single link in the summary leads to fosspatents.com, home of the infamous shill Florian Mueller. I guess I'll wait for more credible sources, thanks.
Well, the FUD strategy has been to never list the patents. If you actually do have patents there is no good reason not to list them. One of the big problems with software patents is exactly that they can be so broad that working around them is actually impossible.
Can someone please change the "anonymous reader writes" to "The paid shill Florian Mueller? Thanks.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Nokia has been in phone business and phone related software business since the start. One could argue that they started the business in the first place and would be at least partially right.
They most definitely hold at least some patents that came to be before google was formed. And a whole lot more from time after google was formed but before it purchased android.
The problem is how they are choosing to use them. Normally you'd just negociate a licensing agreement and be done with it. But here, they're actually patent trolling. "We don't share the vision and do not want to help". So we sue to block. Ouch.
That's not the way nokia of old got to be on top. Elop and his microsoftism shines through.
I think at this point, we can all look back on their history and realize that patents suck. Their concept was noble... protect the new inventor from having his invention stolen by a large corporation. But in practice, that happens anyway. Whomever has the most money for lawyers wins. The inventor of something is completely irrelevant at this point. Patents are nothing more than a legal artifice used by corporations to siphon money from one another. So lets just give it up, drop patent law and see how it goes. It can't be any worse than what we have now.
Renaming the invisible product doesn't make it any less of a bullshit argument.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
This is still a FUD-filled article.
If you look at the list, the 86 patents turn out to be just a few basic concepts, with each patent obtained in multiple jurisdictions.
It appears Florian Muller is preparing to resume his old SCO role as Microsoft-sponsored pundit.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
patent infringement is an almost certainty.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think I am "anyone who follows codecs" and I'm not as sure of this as you are.
A lot of patents are very narrow. Many of the famous software patents, like One-Click, are disturbingly broad, but many of the patents related to video compression are narrow. The VP8 strategy, as I understand it, was to study the patents and make sure that everything in VP8 was just different enough that it doesn't infringe.
This means that VP8 is an inferior codec compared to H.264; some of the patented techniques really are better. However, it should be a "good enough" codec for most purposes.
Their "work around" was to give identical technologies different names and put their fingers into their ears screaming "LA LA LA LA LA" denying any patent infringement.
-1, flamebait.
When they realized this wasn't going to work, Google finally licensed the patents from MPEG LA.
I don't purport to have a secret pipeline into Google management and be able to tell what they were thinking. Do you have such a secret pipeline?
An equally workable summary is: Google had an opportunity to throw a few dollars at MPEG-LA and end the FUD forever, and they did so. Even if Google was convinced they could win on the merits in court, it was worth something to just make the problems vanish.
Note that Google specifically has not agreed that there was any patent infringement:
Source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2030241/google-licenses-video-codec-from-mpeg-la-to-bolster-vp8.html
P.S. I am somewhat bemused by your tone. It seems you are eager to see VP8 get shackled by patents... why is that? Are you so certain that Google is a bad actor here that you just want to see Google get punished? Or do you hate freedom, or what exactly?
Please for one moment stipulate that VP8 contains technologies that are just enough different from the patents that they don't infringe... would you still have a problem with VP8 in that case?
MPEG-LA has claimed that it is impossible to make a video codec without infringing patents, because all the fundamental technologies are patented... is this, in your opinion, a good situation?
I'm personally cheering for Google in all this. They spent over $100 million to buy On2, just so they could set VP8 free. As far as I can tell, they did this for two reasons:
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
I know I am not supposed to feed it, but just in case...
Second, When MPEG LA first announced the VP8 pool formation, a rush of companies applied to be in the pool, partly because everyone wanted to see what everyone else had. That gave way to some amount of disappointment. And by 'some amount' I mean 'rather a lot really, more than the MPEG-LA would care to admit.'
Eventually, things whittled down to a few holdouts. Those '11 patent holders' do not assert they have patents that cover the spec. They said '_may_ cover'. The press release itself repeats this. Then these patent holders said 'and we're willing to make that vague threat go away for a little cash'. Google paid the cash. This is what lawyers do.
That's why it's a huge newsworthy deal when companies like NewEgg actually take the more expensive out and litigate a patent. It is always more expensive than settling, even if you'd win the case, and very few companies are willing or able to do it. Google was probably able, but not willing.
As for the quality stuff, WebM is close enough that it doesn't matter. We could argue details of that point, but the real reason Google is doing this is because the use cases for a web-centric codec are VERY different than the use cases for Hollywood and broadcast media. For example, web programmers don't care about encoding speed, we care about battery usage on cell-phones.
Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
Methinks both the eric conspiracy and jcdr are correct in their assertions. Nokia of late, under Elop is has both business models in use at the moment: selling phones to the developing world *and* patent trolling.
This btw is the same guy that sold the Nokia headquarters building, while agreeing to lease it back long-term.
He closed several factories in Europe, sending production (and build-quality) to Asia.
He's has and is paid many millions, although he's only been with the company just a few years. Coincidentally he came from Microsoft with millions of MS shares in the bank. He's Ballmer's Tool.
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
Country:US:Filing date:19.01.2001, Filing number:09/766035, Pub.number:20010017944, Grant number:NA
It's disgusting they have patents filed in 2001 that are still pending that means they have will have a monopoly on that particular invention until abotu 2030, due to a loophole in the patent law that states that if the patent takes longer than 2 years to grant .. the time until the actual grant date doesn't count. This allows companies to extract royalties for 30 to even 40 years, especially if they had other patents that were granted for a particular type of technology.
The US Patent Office is to blame for this mess!!!