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Chinese Gov't Reveals Microsoft's Secret List of Android-Killer Patents

Posted by samzenpus on from the read-it-and-weep dept.

walterbyrd (182728) writes "A list of hundreds of patents that Microsoft believes entitle it to royalties over Android phones, and perhaps smartphones in general, has been published on a Chinese language website. The patents Microsoft plans to wield against Android describe a range of technologies. They include lots of technologies developed at Microsoft, as well as patents that Microsoft acquired by participating in the Rockstar Consortium, which spent $4.5 billion on patents that were auctioned off after the Nortel bankruptcy."

10 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. If generic and common behavior patents are... by Parker+Lewis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... not stupid enough, Microsoft additionally wants to keep the patents secret. So, if your company reach a success level that can bother them, even if you try avoid most of the IT patents (which is impossible, because they're TOO generic), "SURPRISE, this is the list of patents you infringing and had no idea because we keep them in secret!"

    1. Re:If generic and common behavior patents are... by MrDoh! · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Agreed. It's crazy to create 'secret rules/laws' "Don't break our rules!" "What rules?" "We won't tell you them until you break them"

      --
      Waiting for an amusing sig.
    2. Re:If generic and common behavior patents are... by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I've always thought that was stupid, and an abuse of patents.

      We're going to threaten you with the notion that you may be violating one of many undisclosed patents. We're going to insist on a cut of revenues to license these patents to you. We may or may not tell you the patents even once we have your money.

      This should be a put up or shut up scenario.

      I also heavily expect that a great deal of these patents would yield howls of outrage as they more or less became "a system an methodology for doing something exactly like in the real world, but with a communications device/computer/phone".

      This is just a blanket extortion scheme intended to make sure there can be no competition because everybody is beholden the the big players who hold patents awarded by chimpanzees whose job it is to simply approve as many as possible.

      Now that's innovation.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:If generic and common behavior patents are... by PackMan97 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You NEVER EVER NEVER want to search for a patent when implementing something. To do so opens you up to a willful violation of that patent and treble (x3) damages.

    4. Re:If generic and common behavior patents are... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      they get to extract patent royalties without risking Google working their way around the patents

      You shouldn't get to to sue someone for "infringing your rights" if that's exactly what you want them to do.

    5. Re:If generic and common behavior patents are... by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 3, Insightful

      China is communist exactly the way in which the US is capitalist.

  2. Groklaw by Tough+Love · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Groklaw... where art thou? You're going to miss the fun... let the patent killing begin. Gentlemen, start your engines.

    How nice to have the 800 pound gorilla on our side :)

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  3. But no one really cares about Microsoft... by i_ate_god · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...in the mobile world. All they will do send a lot of people towards Apple and they will accomplish nothing.

    --
    I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
  4. When you can't innovate... by roc97007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...what's left but to become a patent troll?

    --
    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
    1. Re:When you can't innovate... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Of course the people with massive amounts of money are interested in maintaining an inherently flawed patent system which makes them massive amounts of money.

      Film at 11.

      When Microsoft can extort a share of Android with the threat of using an unspecified list of patents, the patent system has become so utterly broken as to be useless.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.