Slashdot Mirror
Judge Slams Apple-Motorola Suit As 'Business Strategy'
jfruh writes "Faced with an Apple vs. Motorola lawsuit that involves 180 claims and counterclaims across 12 patents, a judge in Florida has thrown up his hands and accused both companies of acting in bad faith. Claiming the parties' were engaged in 'obstreperous and cantankerous conduct', he said that the lawsuit was part of 'a business strategy that appears to have no end.'"
Fighting is stupid. You should just concentrate on making a great product, just like Apple does. Note that, Motorola/Google, and stop fighting.
He is entirely correct. But this is what the US patent and court system has brought things to. There is no substantial downside to patent litigation for companies of this size. Even if you lose, you win, because you've forced your competitor through the legal defense ordeal.
Is he implying that Apple's business strategy is somehow tied into massive, pervasive, and obvious patent trolling? No sir, simply won't buy it. Everyone knows they invented rounded corners.
I got here through a series of tubes
that the judge blurting out what is obvious to anyone following the case is a clear violation of protocol.
Figures tongue lashings and pointy fingers should patch this issue right up.
Until we see punishment for such business practices, they'll continue to be profitable. As long as they're profitable, companies will continue to use such business practices. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that judges are also seeing the idiocy that certain policies seem to lead to, but given how these companies sometimes even blatantly disregard the courts... They'll just find a different patent and sue in a different court system until they get their money back.
I can't see how Motorola's using the lawsuit as a business strategy. They didn't file it, they don't want to be in court, and they have no choice about showing up or about what claims they have to defend against. I'm getting more and more annoyed at judges who get mad at defendants for having the temerity to stand up and defend themselves against the claims the plaintiff has made. If their defenses are meritless, then just rule so and be done with it. If they aren't meritless, then the blame for any complexity lies with the party making the claims, not the defense.
Can we stop pretending that Motorola is a separate company. It's Google. Motorola is now just a brand owned by Google. The company calling the shots is Google.
How can lawyers get even richer if they can't set up laws that generate legal conflict?
How dare this judge turn his back on his weaselly brethren and threaten to expose the whole scam?
That had the scrolly features patched away because of one of these lawsuits and sees what kind of bullshit this is. This quite literally happened to one of my friends phones after all this debacle about using the finger to scroll shit.
The judge should ask Apple if it plans to be in business 200 years from today.
When Apple says yes, the judge should suspend the suit and schedule another hearing in 100 years.
To an immortal corporation, a "speedy trial" can easily be measured in centuries.
Showing that much sense in Florida is against the state constitution, especially by a public official.
The guy is going to get impeached.
Next your going to tell me that portable devices have over inflated prices just to turn a larger profit.
As time goes on it seems that Googles Patent buy is looking better and better value. With Motorola streamlined, its phones finally with 4.x software on, an exciting launch of the X phone to look forward to, and its nice to hear that they can effectively stand up against patent rapists Apples.
they are corrupted and stupid.
For one, whoever built it first, gets it first.
Stop patenting ideas in napkins and paper, without a working prototype.
Stop patenting stupid things like "looks and feel". You can trademark those already.
In software, an algorithm should be patented, not a pie in the sky process with no technical information. And the algorithm should only be patented when it is shown to work. Build a prototype!
To know if there is a legal case, the process should be simple. If you compare the two activity diagrams, for two allegedly different algorithms, and they are similar, you got a case.
He is entirely correct.
Except this game(sic) as you put it did not exist [in the mobile sphere], everyone got along and licensed their patents to each other through FRAND, and them Steve Jobs with a few weak obvious interface patents and a few basic shape design patents...and a first out of gate [apart from that other phone] product, ever since then its been Apple patent raping one end of the phone industry to get the to sell Windows Phones [Seriously WTF?] to Microsoft patent raping them at the other to get them to License Windows Phone [and put a little in Ballmers retirement fund]...Lets call it what it is a misuse of Legal system through patents by companies who cannot compete through innovation [While slipping a few thousand into group troll companies].
Sounds like a sensible response from the judge. But what is the long term solution here? Maybe there needs to be a mechanism for disallowing "obvious" ideas to be patented. But then there is the problem of defining what is "obvious". There must be some pretty boring/bored patent lawyers out there.
How can lawyers get even richer if they can't set up laws that generate legal conflict?
Except this is little to do with Lawyers, and everything to do with Steve Jobs protecting Apple from being out innovated by Android, a market that made it the richest company on earth with a market cap of over $400 Billion and $140Billion sat around in cash. The Lawyers are a trivial expense, of what the Judge rightly calls a bushiness strategy.
The judge should complain to the law makers.
My karma ran over your dogma
Its time that Judge's start to call this for what it is, grandstanding and overt bullying by companies unwilling to work together and instead harm each other through their patent portfolio.
I definitely think the bubble has burst on software patents and judges and lawmakers are getting annoyed with the abuse by companies like Apple.
Its funny though that just a year ago, while Apple was riding high as the world's most valued company, judges were quick to rule in favour of Apple, now judges are just tired of the same old bullshit.
The heart of all this is just a need for companies to offer sane and reasonable licensing and royalties on their protected patents. Apple refuses to let a competitor even remotely create a competitive feature that matches on of their own, and instead of just working out a decent royalty structure instead decides to attempt to annihilate the competition in courts. Of course this has set up a precedence for other companies to treat Apple the same way.
In any case, its great the judges are finally saying enough is enough. There needs to be a few more high profile cases like this thrown out by impatient judges to see this trend end once and for all, but the tide is definitely turning.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
How sad it must be to run Motorola and see all of your hard work at developing the company basically turn in to a multibillion dollar patent portfolio.
FYI Motorola still sell phones...and some good ones. Keep your eye out for the Xphone it might just be your next smartphone :)
You made your stupid patent bed, now you must slumber stupidly in it.
I like to think of online DRM as something akin to a college -- you pay for lessons until you learn something.
Claiming the parties' were engaged in 'obstreperous and cantankerous conduct', he said that the lawsuit was part of 'a business strategy that appears to have no end.'
Motorola lawyer: Yeah.
Apple lawyer: And?
Judge: *long pause* *deep sigh* Very well. *gets up, starts walking towards lawyers* I believe, at this point, I am legally permitted, by the great State of Florida, to dope-slap the both of you. Not only am I permitted to do so, I may be legally required as well, something I am not about to question. Please turn around.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
he said that the lawsuit was part of 'a business strategy that appears to have no end
No, it's part of conducting business when math can be patented. Don't like it? Outlaw patents on math.
everyone got along and licensed their patents to each other through FRAND ...right up until Apple came along and started making so much money that companies that had licensed out patents at reasonable terms to everyone else demanded Apple pay far more. Thus making a mockery of FRAND.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Apple has been pulling this crap since way before Google even existed.
The history of this lawsuit, and much of Apple's legal shananagins, prove this without a doubt.
Apple is pedatory, and loves to abuse the legal system. Google, not so much.
Patent lawsuits are not *always* bullshit. Some lawsuits are completely legitamite.
If Apple was having real technology stolen from them, I would applaud Apple taking appropriate steps to protect technology that Apple actually invented.
FYI: Apple did not invent rounded corners.
Just invalidate all the patents both sides claim and move the case over to the Moot Court of the nearest law school.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The US patent/litigation clusterfuck is a man made disaster as bad as any in recorded history. Its an obscenity a million times worse than all the porn on the internet. Its an American clusterfuck that sadly, they are trying to export. If the judge sees it as a problem, and millions of people see it as a problem, and the government is supposed to be 'for the people', and isn't, then the government needs to be changed.
Are you able to throw dick moves at will? How about deflecting a dick move onslaught? If so, we want to talk to you.
~ Google/Apple/M$/Motorola... dick pool
This is why we're supposed to try patent infringement cases in East Texas - by contrast to TFA, justices there love it when patent lawyers use the courtroom as a vehicle to advance their employers' business strategy. Was the docket full? Or else how did the defendant manage to get the venue changed?
a judge can reassign his caseload however he wants until retirement in many jurisdictions, and in all of them if the head of judicial assignments also thinks it's noise. it is far more common to dismiss for frivolity or abuse of the system. but then the t1t vs. tat lawsuits pop up somewhere else. if a Federal judge ices the case, it's not going to bite anybody.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Oh the delicious irony.
Apple lovers start by refusing to acknowledge anything negative about their beloved company, believing that no technology existed before Apple invented it, and then work from the premise that everybody else is a rip-off artist.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
Obstreperous and cantankerous, you say? Why, I haven't heard such utterances since my carriage driver commented on -- I daresay lamented -- my choice of mustache-wax.
FRAND is an agreement among the in-group to increase their ability to compete with those not a member of the in-group. It serves little, if any, other function. Who gets to determine what's a fair and reasonable price? It's not you if you don't have deep pockets.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Apple lovers start by refusing to acknowledge anything negative about their beloved company
I've acknowledged of negative things about Apple, like noting from the start APple's lawsuits were silly.
I'll bet there's not one positive thing you've ever said about Apple, you hypocritical wanker.
I'll let you have the last response because Apple Haters just cannot help but beclown themselves at every opportunity.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
FRAND parents are licensed out to other people in the parent pool for a reasonable price.
Normally, yes. That's in exchange for having the patent be part of a pool that everyone has to use because it's in a standard.
What parents have Apple put in the pool to make them a contributor, and thus eligible for FRAND prices?
Let me just tell you what you said here - that no-one without a few patents can build anything based on a standard because they are not contributing to the pool.
Oops!
That is NOT what the pools are about. It's not about who contributes to the pool at all, it's only about the existence of the pool so that ANY company can build to a standard and have a rough expectation of the licensing fees involved. Obviously if you have some of your own patents in the pool it means you do not have to pay those portion of the fees; it does NOT mean any of the others cost you less because you are in the pool.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
why doesn't the judge charge fees due to the contempt of court?
So... You think Apple should get FRAND welfare because ... they didn't contribute anything?
Sorry, are there any other non-contributing companies getting special treatment?
No? Huh...
You have some very strange ideas...
Required reading for internet skeptics
ITYM "breast vs. tat"
goes to this judge....
So... You think Apple should get FRAND welfare because ... they didn't contribute anything?
Are you really an idiot? I wouldn't think so. But all evidence here is looking pretty grim for you.
Let me make this ever more crystal clear than it was in the last message. FRAND PRICES ARE FOR ANYONE.
It's not welfare you fool. The whole point of FRAND is, AGAIN, so that ANY COMPANY ON EARTH can build stuff using a standard and have license fees be a known quantity - because they are reasonable and NON-DISCRIMINATORY. Yes, that is a word in the very term FRAND, so why again did you think Apple should pay more? You know, price discrimination for Apple?
How someone so stupid can even post simply boggles the mind. You may respond, but reading anything further from you risks infection and I'll not have that.
I hope the tirade of insults here has at least promoted you to learn a tiny bit about the next subject you post on.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Just for fun, no company worth more than $100K should be allowed to own a patent (or copyright).
Now *that* will spur creation of new ideas, not hoarding a ridiculous legal battles that clog the system.
Patent trolls: dead.
Greedy companies: dead.
Small companies: in with a fighting chance
Wasn't that the point in the first place?
Dishevel wrote: Patents and Copyright are Government granted temporary monopoly's over that which has been patented or is under copyright. Was originally granted to spur more creation of these things to enrich the public domain. Problem is the temporary part has been massively subverted. Now almost nothing ever makes it into the public domain. Some Anonymous Coward ass wrote: As I'm sure you're not a native speaker, let me help you with your studies. "Monopoly's" refers to something owned by a monopoly, as "all the profits are the monopoly's money." You don't use an apostrophe for plurals, you use it for posessives and contractions. The word you were looking for was monopolies. Get over yourself. Disheveled was submitting a comment on Slashdot, not a thesis to his college advisor or doctoral committee. If we want to start invoking grammatical do's and do not's (Notice the legitimate use of apostrophes indicating neither possession or contraction.), we might also discuss how you wrote "You don't use an apostrophe for plurals, you use it for posessives and contractions" when surely you _meant_ "ONE doesn't use an apostrophe for plurals, ONE uses it for posessives and contractions." After all, disheveled clearly DOES, or at least did, use an apostrophe for a plural. Disheveled wrote: Problem is the temporary part has been massively subverted. Now almost nothing ever makes it into the public domain. Some Anonymous Coward ass wrote: You are conflating patents and copyrights, each which has completely different problems. Patents do run out and enter the public domain -- an example is the GIF patent that ran out recently. Patents only last 20 years, which is only a long time if you're only 20. The trouble with patents is they're so expensive only a rich man or a corporation can afford to get one, but if you have the money one is way too easy to get. Copyrights are only $35 to register, but last way WAY too long. Disheveled is not conflating anything. You are being extraordinarily intellectually uncharitable in your interpretation of disheveled, and you appear to be conflating ego with actual wisdom or intelligence. Copyrights and patents both do grant temporary "monopolies" (I'm not sure that's actually the best term for what they grant.), but the temporary nature of both have been, as disheveled noted, subverted. In the current tech world, twenty years IS a LONG time. Twenty MONTHS is a long time. Twenty years ago Slashdot did not exist and, IF you had any cell phone, it was heavy, with limited coverage, and very expensive to use. Hell, twenty WEEKS is a long time. It's not uncommon, a few months after some company has released a cutting edge mobile device to collective ooh's and ah's, for another company to release a device that bests the product of the first company. In any case, as Lord Luceless pointed out, the lowering of the bar on what can be patented has made it possible for entities to easily subvert the temporary nature of patents by getting new ones for relatively trivial modifications.
Oh yes, by selling millions of the same product, thats how. In which case it is entirely right that the FRAND licence they pay is much higher than the licence that someone who will only sell a few thousand products pays.
Which is why license fees are PER UNIT.
Didn't read the rest since you got the basic premise wrong.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley