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Microsoft, Apple and Others Launch Huge Patent Strike at Android
New submitter GODISNOWHERE writes "Nortel went bankrupt in 2009. In 2011, it held an auction for its massive patent portfolio. The winners of the auction were Apple, Microsoft, Sony, RIM, and others, who bought the patents for $4.5 billion as a consortium named Rockstar Bidco. At the time, many people speculated those patents would be used against Google, who bid separately but lost. It turns out they were right. Rockstar has filed eight lawsuits in federal court targeting Google and Android device manufacturers. 'The complaint (PDF) against Google involves six patents, all from the same patent "family." They're all titled "associative search engine," and list Richard Skillen and Prescott Livermore as inventors. The patents describe "an advertisement machine which provides advertisements to a user searching for desired information within a data network. The oldest patent in the case is US Patent No. 6,098,065, with a filing date of 1997, one year before Google was founded. The newest patent in the suit was filed in 2007 and granted in 2011. The complaint tries to use the fact that Google bid for the patents as an extra point against the search giant.'"
... how is this a strike against Android?
It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.
Sue the best.
Apple, Microsoft, and Sony (nobody cares about RIM), three of the biggest names in technology. Three of the most influential and powerful companies in the world. Three companies that have historically been in fierce competition with one another.
And they had to gang up on Google.
What does that say about how much they fear Google?
Apple, Microsoft, Sony, RIM, and others, who bought the patents for $4.5 billion as a consortium named Rockstar Bidco
I presume it's not, but that should be illegal collusion and an anti-trust violation.
beat them in the courts.
There was a reason why Google bid $4.4 billion. They certainly thought some of the patents were valid. But that does not mean that these 6 patents are valid. That Google bid on the larger group, should be considered irrelevant.
Broken system. Too much politics, too much backstabbing, too much use of patents to tear down competitors instead of just arranging a reasonable fee.
Abolish software and "business method" patents. They're not *things*, just ideas. They're not what patents were *created* to protect.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Those who can, innovate.
Those who can't, litigate.
Sorry, Apple, but the Woz was right when he explained concern over your company. And I've not really seen Microsoft innovate itself out of a paper bag in years... But that's ok, they'll make sure they're on the gravy train by attempting to collect royalties every Android device out there...
I thought patents were given out to people who invent things, not repackage or rename existing technology with one little thing changed?
Everyone was asking if the motorola acquisition was worth it. Right now I'm guessing it is. Motorola had 17000 patents.
Google must have more than a few basic patents too, just all of block them in most of their products on internet/mobile and bring the whole industry to an halt until the legal system regarding patents stop being so badly screwed.
To save people the trouble of finding these:
http://patents.justia.com/inventor/richard-prescott-skillen
In a surprise announcement, Google said they were relocating the entire company to Antigua....
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
About time Google gets called out for blatantly ripping off other peoples hard work. This self entitled freetard mentality has no place in the real world!
All the best, Apple, Microsoft, and all!
I really have to wonder what the people who started the patent system would have thought of this kind of thing. Something tells me this is not what they had in mind. I thought the whole idea was to protect the inventors. If a company goes bankrupt, they really don't need protection, so the patent should go into the public domain. If an individual is granted a patent, they should either have to do something with it in the allotted time, or lose it. Patents were not meant to be used as a way to sue companies as a means of making profit. Nor should massive corporations be able to use them as an Armageddon device against their competitors. I know my post sounds naive and that it's not that simple. But this is just not how the system was intended to work.
I tried to google for more information on this lawsuit, but searching for Apple, Microsoft, Sony, RIM, and others returns no hits. Weird.
And Altavista was doing everything this patent describes starting in 1995...
I think it is safe to assume Google saw this coming. Which means they believe it will cost less than 4.4 billion to win (I assume their ability to serve ads, and android, both are not something they will willingly give up on).
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Maybe Google should have licensed the use of Android with an agreement that parties will not sue each other or Google over (questionable?) infringements. I'd guess that they're all sueing because if you add up all their market share together, you'd probably have 10% of the market. Sore losers. Just another reason why I'll never own a Microsoft, Apple, Sony or RIM phone.
Just how many billable hours is it going to take for all Google's lawyers to burn 4.4 billion?
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
"Smartphone Sales: Apple Squeezed, Blackberry Squashed, Android 81.3%"
http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/13/11/01/0133203/smartphone-sales-apple-squeezed-blackberry-squashed-android-813
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
And just block Apple and Microsoft sites index from search for a day and see how they like non existence.
Google will win.
Litigate. Full stop.
Microsoft are upset because they are no longer in the limelight. They have nothing compelling on offer. Nothing. They are an also ran.
Google and Apple are the town tarts at present, and when they are no longer getting the attention, they, too, will start to litigate. Sad, but true.
I once read an article stating that a company is good for about 40 or so years. Both Apple and Microsoft are getting there. Time to move over and let others take the fore.
I always believed that the purpose of intellectual property to was to better ensure that the creator(s) of the thing had exclusive rights to their creations, ensuring their investments of blood, sweat and tears has a better chance of a return. But that's not what happens is it? No. What we have is an industry. And with any industry, we experience dehumanizing effects.
What's the solution? We can write an increasingly complex set of laws to address specific predatory behaviors such as patent trolling. That won't solve the problems of giant industry players from fighting each other like giant Japanese monsters on the streets of Tokyo. The real solution?
Disallow all intellectual property transfers. If you didn't create it, you can't own it. Then it reverts to its original purpose and intent and virtually removes all industrial activity. But what happens when the creators, authors and companies die? Does all that valuable intellectual property just vanish in a puff of smoke? Well? Yes. I would hope so.
Can't compete? Litigate.
Patents are so stupid and fundamentally wrong.
If someone is an inventor and not interested in business then you screw them over. Some people are good with coming up with new things, but suck at running a corporation. Instead they want to go to making the next new thing and sell off their previous idea and have someone who want to run a business deal with that.
Google bought Motorola Mobility that has patents on plenty of communication related "innovations". Sony, Apple and RIM should watch out.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Which is so painfully obvious the phonebook is prior art.
You go look under plumber and with the listing you see advertising.
Painfully obvious in hindsight. Why was it patented before google came into existence?
While I tend to agree with you in this case, if you want google to win the lawsuit you have to answer the above question satisfactorily.
Imagine the Hammer was invented after patent laws. obvious in hindsight. simple. But eminently patentable as a method for driving with more force than banging it with a rock.
here one prior art would be the yellow pages. But it lacked the force of a data base search. the search terms in the yellowpages were pre-formed. so less forceful.
the fact that was not an obvious improvement is that at the time Google was formed, Yahoo was not a search engine per se. It was a curated set of pre-formed categories like a yellow pages.
another prior art would be Alta Vista and Overture. They were packing the top of the search results list with advertiser's listings. so here we do have advertising using a data base.
But at that time they were not using a user profile to make the listing adaptive. SO less force.
Early google was simmilar but the ads were shifted to the right column not intermixed. Later on Google became adaptive.
So in 1997 it's not yet obvious since others with the means to do so before google did not do so.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Any decent defence attorney will find little trouble pointing out that all pre-1997 search engines are prior art, since a search engine has always been an advertising machine. If I typed into Alta Vista, in 1996, a search for "books" and came up with any site related to books, Alta Vista has acted in the role of an advertising machine in directing me to that site.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
An interesting economic response to this would be to simply kill anyone who invented anything.
If they did it for a day, that might annoy Apple and Microsoft. If they did it for longer, people would just move away from Google and go somewhere else. If people wanting to buy iPads or Surfaces or look up Windows APIs or whatever can't find their answers on Google, they'll stop going to google to find Thai restaurants and art supply stores too. It's kind of like shutting the government down to force negotiation over a particular law. You better be REALLY sure that the people affected by the shutdown feel as strongly as you do about the particular law before you do it.
Somehow Slashdotters forgot...
Rockstar went together to buy Nortel patents so they could be open to all companies involved. Then, Google jumped ship to try and buy them separately... and failed. So, now Rockstar is going to sue companies that didn't pay to open up these patents to all using them. Can't blame them. Goggle needs to pay up just like the others did.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I would move my business to a country that does not have a broken Patent system like the US. Heck, not a single court in the EU would allow this to even be take to court.
Every time I tell this story, I get downmods from people who are too cowardly to reply, because they know they have no valid argument in favor of this kind of behavior from Apple.
That's a big part of why I tell this story over, and over again. I know it hits the mark squarely.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Apple and Microsoft will retaliate by adding a entry to the hosts file that redirects Google.com to Bing on all PCs, Macs and iDevices.
-- apk
Care to imagine what that will do to Google's ad revenue?
This space for rent.
If they're threatening to harm Android, they're forgetting that the majority of it is open source.
We need a surge of developers to start working on Android!
Am I wrong or Sony is an actual (and official) Android OEM?
You're thinking of a different sale, confusing Nortel and Novell.
Also, even if Google could have signed on (they couldn't ), that wouldn't have protected them because Microsoft, Apple et al are suing anyone who makes Android devices (Samsung etc.). It's little use for Google to not be sued directly if nobody can build Android devices.
I really miss Groklaw days like this
You will like your Galaxy Note even more when it no longer is able to host any advertising.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
That wouldn't solve a thing. People would just sign exclusive irrevocable licenses instead. So you'd want to forbid that, and then the next thing, and you'd end up with the exact same "increasingly complex set of laws to address specific predatory behaviors" that you're (correctly, IMHO) arguing against.
The original idea behind patents, which is still the current justification, was to encourage inventors to publish their invention. Others looking for a solution could read the patent and make it, or build on it. In exchange, they got exclusive right to it. E.g, money. Possibly. Since inventing was deemed difficult, and thus also rare, and patents few, it was reasonable to assume that if you're infringing, you must have known about it, so you pay up.
But two things gradually happened.
One people figured they needn't be so specific in the patent, so the "blueprint" became more like "figure it out yourself, just make sure you give us money". And what's the point of looking for it, never mind reading it, if you have to do the work yourself anyway. So the publishing aspect is pretty much gone. It's gone into trade publications, for the good stuff, in marketing blurbs, or just on the internet. The patent system itself is just a registrar for write-only documents.
Two, the volume of invention exploded, simply because more and more people got pulled off farms and assembly lines and into offices. That made it ever harder to keep track of what's happening. It also massively increased the likelihood of "co-invention" (people coming up with the same idea, the same solution to the same problem without knowing about each other).
And note that one of the consequence of these two things is that it made it quite reasonable to just sit on your invention, possibly denying having anything at all, which is a complete perversion of the original intent, and wait for somebody else to 1) invent the same and 2) sell it and just get money from them. More reasonable in fact than going through all the trouble of developing it into something sell-able and actually sell it.
To fix this mess, IMHO, you need to go back to the first principle. It is NOT reasonable anymore to assume that if you're infringing you used the other's guy work. "Property". So what needs to happen is:
1) if someone is found to infringe, he gets a share of the patent, not punishment. That would quickly cut down on obvious patents, frivolous lawsuits and so on.
2) only if someone is found to have WILLFULLY infringed do they have to pay. That would restore the incentive for inventors to publicize their work. Which always was the whole point.
Rockstar is 32 patent trolls? You'd probably only need to kill 10 of 'em and the rest would run away. 15% of the members of the world's population would probably be willing to do that for less than 10% of the money involved.
You've clearly never observed most aggressive species in action. There is never more than one male, or one alpha, in any pack. Those who do not subordinate must leave or are killed. It is possible for alphas to cooperate on a temporary basis, but only in the pursuit of destroying a bigger threat, and always the end result is that one alpha will emerge, or each semi-alpha will take a portion of the pack and leave.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
This mainly implies that the law firm had not yet run into the filing document word limit. Most lawyers would cite vaginal birth as evidence of precocious sexuality.
Logically, one might presume that the winning bid is most likely to come from the side at greatest risk of being sunk were the patents were to be wielded against them. In this vein one would argue that Apple & Co. made the most lucrative bid to absolve themselves of their own infringements of the Nortel portfolio.
This great opera of stupidities proposed and disposed takes place while the aggrieved parties on both sides shower hundred dollar bills upon the jousting hookers of horseshit.
They had to suit started before congress passes the non-practicing entity patent reform. This is a patent troll created by 4 of Googles largest competitors to target them without fear of countersuit.
I think congress needs to add a retroactive clause to the law and pass it ASAP, either that or add language allowing Google to penetrate the sham corporation running the shakedown and sue them directly.
Those people need what are called "partnerships" where you team with someone who can do the business side.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Then killing the competition will take on a much more literal interpretation.
Reminds me of SCO, last resort sue.. not sure all those players suing will still be there, in 5 or 10 years from now.. Sounds like an already lost battle, only made for investors to think, there is still something relevant in their claim, when there are none. Those companies are angry at google, because they are losing market share, business, and this is the only beginning, i think, otherwise they would be more busy at competing then suing.
my opinion
Would you still allow works for hire? They're effectively transfers from the actual creators (individual people) to corporate entities.
Nobody makes much profit off Android - most players make no profit at all.
I'm pretty sure Samsung would disagree with you strongly. You are correct that most Android device makers don't make much of a profit but Samsung definitely does well with Android devices. Google doesn't really need to make money off Android directly. Android is a play by Google to protect their actual core business which is advertising. By controlling the platform they can't be crowded out in mobile ads by Apple or Microsoft.
Everybody better let Rockstar Games know that you think they're assholes for this crap.
Cause that trademark and brand damage, watch the real Rockstar file a huge suit in return regarding trademarks.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Google just has to say 'ineligible subject matter'. Google will also lose it's own patents, but the competition can't outdo them so Google's own patents don't matter.
Since corporations are "people," I'm sure we can find a way around such a policy!
Better idea:
* Eliminate all copyrights/patents and replace them with assurance contracts and crowdfunding. Or more accurately, watch as they fill the void naturally. These government-granted monopolies are the solution to a problem that only existed before instant worldwide communication and digital cash.
* Leave trademarks and trade secrets as-is.
I will NEVER buy another Grand Theft Auto game, ever.
Just buy out RIM for $4-8B and become a part owner of the patents.
So if Rockstar reverse engineered the software to search for patent violations, would it be possible to counter-sue them via the DMCA's anti-circumvention clause?
For as much as I believe that to be a bad law, the irony in a counter-suit of that nature would be awesome.
Everyone involved disgusts me.
Disallow all intellectual property transfers. If you didn't create it, you can't own it. Then it reverts to its original purpose and intent and virtually removes all industrial activity. But what happens when the creators, authors and companies die? Does all that valuable intellectual property just vanish in a puff of smoke? Well? Yes. I would hope so.
In other words, you prefer the world of Shadowrun, where intellectual property owners/creators are assassinated by wetwork teams so Megacorp X can release a competing device?
Serving ads is like a spellchecker, you search for a close match for the input. Been around for a while.
You have failed to demonstrate that such claims are "bogus," assuming that that is even a legally meaningful term.
in and of itself?
US6098065 appears to be a patent that describes nothing more than "All these existing patents other companies file last year, combined!"
No wonder Nortel didn't try and use them.
Google pays 4.5 billion to license every patent in the portfolio. Done. Surely they can't show that its worth more than the cost of obtaining the patents.
Abolish software patents, they cause more harm than good... If a company wants to lead the way in innovation then improve on something that already exists, stop the damn fighting already...
Does your car and computer vanish in a puff of smoke? NO. It becomes part of your estate. Succession law applies to intangible assets too.
Maybe if Google is SMART - they will make a move to BAN software patents. Thus negating these kinds of lawsuits and making innovation a thing of the future not a thing of the past.
Knight Ridder was working on this in 1994, prior to the patent filing date of 1997.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBEtPQDQNcI
That was easy.
Painfully obvious in hindsight. Why was it patented before google came into existence?
Because at that time the patent office let anyone patent anything they wanted, no matter how trivial, as long as they stuck "on a computer" or "on the Internet" in front of it.
Sure, just like an airplane is like a car, only "in the air". And a car is like a wagon only "with a motor". And a wagon is like a boat only, "on land". Or a telephone is like talking only "at a distance".
Doesn't being able to do the same thing, but at a distance, make any difference? if so, tacking on "on the internet" is a BFD.
What's interesting to me about this is, Apple is no ordinary adversary.
If they decide they really really need fab facilities that rival Samsung's, and Samsung will not sell them use of theirs, they may simply go ahead and drop several dozen billion on building, or buying and retrofitting, identical facilities.
At that point, not only will Samsung lose a big customer, but Apple will possess a manufacturing facility that could eventually be offered to Samsung's remaining customers in direct competition. Samsung would rather not let this state of affairs arise.
Check your news source. Samsung is already backpedaling their price hike.
Its not like Apple is a very good corporate citizen either...they've done their own affair share of stealing ideas too.
When will this nonsense stop???
Google should just buy RIM asap... ;)
They should have offered more for the patents then they did. :D
Calm down fanboy. Competition is good, and the Galaxy Note is a great product.
but i'm still learning about capitalism. ain't it grand?
I suspect that Doug Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would have been worded slightly differently had this occurred before he finished his book; i.e., when the reason for the destruction of the Earth (the construction of a hyperspatial express bypass) was given, I suspect the sentence "Doesn't matter, anyway; they chose to self-obsolete with something called 'patents'." would have appeared shortly thereafter.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"
People are killed for their freakin' sneakers. So don't act like changing the law would inspire a bloodbath against inventors and creative types. If that were the case, we would already see a bloodbath against lawyers everywhere as they are the primary beneficiary of these ridiculous patent and copyright actions.