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Microsoft, Apple and Others Launch Huge Patent Strike at Android

Posted by Soulskill on from the go-big-or-go-home dept.

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.'"

14 of 476 comments (clear)

  1. so tell me again... by new+death+barbie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... how is this a strike against Android?

    --

    It's supposed to be completely automatic, but actually you have to press this button.

    1. Re:so tell me again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Google's own patent bank, while not as large as it's competitors, is not insubstantial. We're about to see a legal mess of historic proportions. Law firms are going to make insane amounts of money.

      Oh and consumers will be paying the bottom line, can't forget that.

    2. Re:so tell me again... by h4rr4r · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Which is so painfully obvious the phonebook is prior art.

      You go look under plumber and with the listing you see advertising.

    3. Re:so tell me again... by pegr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, I'd prefer an intelligent discourse of experts, perhaps moderated by a competent paralegal with years of experience researching such things.

      PJ, this post is for you. We NEED you. Please reconsider.

    4. Re:so tell me again... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Google's own patent bank, while not as large as it's competitors, is not insubstantial. We're about to see a legal mess of historic proportions. Law firms are going to make insane amounts of money.

      Oh and consumers will be paying the bottom line, can't forget that.

      Government by the lawyers for the lawyers.

      That's what the US really has...

    5. Re:so tell me again... by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product."

      Jesus. Young Steve Jobs was pretty cool. Old, dying Steve Jobs was just an asshole whom young Steve Jobs would have mocked.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    6. Re:so tell me again... by tobiasly · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, I'd prefer an intelligent discourse of experts, perhaps moderated by a competent paralegal with years of experience researching such things.

      PJ, this post is for you. We NEED you. Please reconsider.

      A thousand times this :( It's so sad that we don't have Groklaw to help sort this all out for us. Mr. Florian woke up with a massive hard-on this morning, spewing his usual hypocritical diatribe about how Google brought this all on themselves by not caving in the past. I can't stand the thought that he's the only "tech patent expert" who will be quoted in the news on all of this.

  2. If you can't be the best by Revek · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Sue the best.

  3. wow. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  4. Anti-Trust by ebno-10db · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Anti-Trust by bondsbw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ironically, the result of buying patents is now they have a legal monopoly.

      --
      All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
    2. Re:Anti-Trust by JesseMcDonald · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Google has a virtual monopoly in search. Weakening Google's position in search would enhance not diminish competition.

      Weakening Google's position in search by providing something better would enhance competition. Weakening their position through bogus patent infringement claims is not competition; that's just dragging a more successful competitor down out of spite, to everyone's detriment. The whole point of competition, and the reason we generally try to encourage it, is that the best product wins. The goal is not simply to divide the market up as evenly as possible.

      --
      "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
  5. Patent hell by msobkow · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  6. Where is PJ when we need her by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I really miss Groklaw days like this