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Apple and Google's Motorola Unit End Patent War
An anonymous reader writes "Reuters reports that Apple and Google's Motorola Mobility unit are settling all patent lawsuits over smartphone tech. The settlement 'does not include a cross license to their respective patents,' and the companies will work together for patent reform. According to Reuters, 'The two companies informed a federal appeals court in Washington that the cases should be dismissed, according to filings on Friday. However, the deal does not appear to apply to Apple's litigation against Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, as no dismissal notices were filed in those cases. The most high-profile case between Apple and Motorola began in 2010. Motorola accused Apple of infringing several patents, including one essential to how cell phones operate on a 3G network, while Apple said Motorola violated its patents to certain smartphone features.'"
Oh wait. We still have Microsoft and their proxies trying to prevent the future.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Moto's 3G and radio patents had real teeth. Heck, some of them might be actual, real, inventions....as opposed to the drivel that Apple's been flogging.
Now they won't sue each other, just everyone else. It seems like there is a big existing group here that is becoming harder and harder to launch new competition against (they will both sue you...). You basically can't make smart phones unless you are in the club, and they won't let you in. This is bad for the market place from a consumer perspective, and from the perspective of all other companies. They have formed a trust and we don't have Theodore Roosevelt around anymore to bust it.
Guess Apple didn't want to take another American company to court. It would lose the home-country advantage its trivial patents had against Samsung.
Moto's 3G and radio patents had real teeth.
We already knew from a previous court ruling that they were not worth a hill of beans.
The REAL reason the battle is finally over is because Jobs is gone, and Cook is not a "nuclear option" kind of guy. Cook just wants to chill and make billions of dollars per day or whatever. He's the ultimate supply chain nerd that probably hated dealing with legal crap all the time.
People keep taking about Jobs being gone being all bad. But they forget there are real silver linings like this patent settlement that probably would not happen if Jobs were still alive, since he took the copying issue personally.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The Republicans will never allow this to happen. They love how their laws have ruined innovation in the US
You misspelled "Democrat".
But really the word you should have used is "statist", which can be found in both Democrat and Republicn camps. The reason you keep voting for failure is that you've not discerned that candidates matter more than party.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The REAL reason the battle is finally over is because Jobs is gone
Really THIS got modded insightful. Its down to the whims of CEOs. Jobs died October 5, 2011...get over it.
This case ended like all cases of its kind do. The money; PR; time; strength of their case..some expensive advisers weighed up the pros and cons and decided to call it a draw. the fact that "Judge Richard Posner dismissed it in 2012 shortly before trial, saying neither company had sufficient evidence to prove its case" kind of points in that direction.