Slashdot Mirror
Patent Case Could Shift Power Balance In Tech Industry
An anonymous reader writes A lawsuit between Apple and Google could drastically change the power balance between patent holders and device makers. "The dispute centers on so-called standard-essential patents, which cover technology that is included in industry-wide technology standards. Since others have to use the technology if they want their own products to meet an industry standard, the companies that submit their patents for approval by standards bodies are required to license them out on 'reasonable and non-discriminatory',(paywalled) or RAND, terms." If Apple wins, the understanding of what fees are RAND may decrease by at least an order of magnitude.
It's Google VS Microsoft. The first line of the link says as much. Apple only (rightfully) sided with Microsoft. They aren't involved in the lawsuit.
specifically, RAND(toomuch,waytoomuch).
So is the summary stating that Apple is trying to obfuscate the fee structure or trying to obfuscate which patents are subject to RAND terms?
Can't say I'm rooting for either party here, but I hate the idea of SEPs in general... If a method is literally the only permitted way to do a thing, should it be patentable?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
The court case is between MICROSOFT and Google, not Apple and Google.
Apple did file an amicus brief largely supporting Microsoft's position, but they're not a party to the case.
This is the first time I'm a first poster. I love this limelight!
Can't the submitter at least read the article they are submitting? Moron.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
While I like Apple just as much as any other Mac fan and have been known to be ding as a troll when commenting on Microsoft posts, I have to ask my self one good question about all the litigation between Apple and the world. When will this litigation cross the threshold of aggressiveness and open up Apple to review by regulators as acting in a monopolistic fashion? (dread the thought! I have zero desire to run Internet Explorer on my iPhone.)
Select from tblFriends where interesting >= 4;
Time to prepare the fallout shelter, the end is nigh.
On a more serious note they need to something similar with software patents. Well at least the ones that aren't complete garbage.
Google cache of Financial Times: Patent case could shift power balance in tech industry
There's a difference?
Where was this ruling during the RAMBUS, Inc trials? RAMBUS seeded some of their key patents into JEDEC standards years ago, and then sued the pants off of many DRAM manufacturers later on for patent infringement. Wouldn't this ruling have affected the possible damages that RAMBUS, Inc. could have been awarded from such lawsuits?
FTA - "Based on his process, Robart ruled in April 2013 that the Microsoft owed less than $1.8 million a year for its use of Motorola’s patented video and wireless technologies in Windows, Xbox and other products."
So they can still patent an arrangement of ones and zeros, or are we talking about some physical manifestation of hardware?
I find it interesting that nobody is disputing the validity of the patents, but only the amount you can charge for them. Both sides want patents to remain strong.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
Any “standard-essential patents” should be public domain (or as close as possible, as Elon Musk did with the Tesla battery circuitry), or they should not be included in the standards. Period. FRAND/RAND is code for forming a club where the existing players get to play, but for which there is still a large - potentially huge) cost to join said club - and therefore an artificial barrier to entry into any existing market.
Either make it free to license, or leave it out of the standard, please.
Well, to be fair, it's Microsoft vs. Motorola which was acquired by Google, which still holds the patents. Apple filed a brief in support of Microsoft. The ruling that Apple is support of upholding is that Microsoft only owed a couple of million a year for it's use of those standards in its products.
Motorola sought an amount of four billion a year plus 20 billion in back fees. Google and Qualcomm is arguing the latest ruling was over-reaching, and that they need the ability to charge more. But, given the initial demand, it is clear they want to charge orders of magnitude more for these patents and to seek relief from previous sales. It's pennies versus dollars and that adds up.
And frankly, Google should know better. It's benefited enormously from these technologies being available at a low cost. I know this goes against the Slashdot mindset, but Microsoft is on the right side of the argument here.
BTW, if you register with FT you can get a limited number of articles a month for free (5?), although I had to go to the front page first before it would let me look at the story.
He *is* a loser for doing a "first post" post, but when this article was put up, comments weren't loading, so it probably did appear like he was the first post when he submitted his non-first-post.
This one pisses me off because these type of standards mostly do actual valuable stuff but because they aren't 'essential' we have companies that try to devalue them. These same companies sue for billions for shit like slide to unlock and a slightly less shitty version of a shitty filesystem that became the standard for removable media because of illegal monopoly behave and use them to extort millions from say android phone makers.
Given that RAND stands for "Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory," is it a bit ironic ironic that Ron Paul's son is named Rand?
I can't say yet who I'm voting for in 2016, but I can tell you one guy I'm NOT voting for. Hint: I just mentioned him.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
That just simply wouldn't work. As another poster already pointed out, if you deny them the patent, then they have no reason to involve themselves in researching such, or standardizing.
No one is suggesting denying anyone a patent. What's being suggested is that if something is patented, it shouldn't be part of the standard which everyone has to follow to compete *at all* in the market.
A really good example of this is the Qualcomm CDMA patent. They did a lot of great work, behind that patent, and they deserve the patent. But you shouldn't have to implement it in order to implement a cell phone that works, and be completely locked out of building cell phones otherwise. It should not be part of the standard infrastructure.
And, in fact, it's not. Most of the world is GSM, because they are unwilling to pay the $35 royalty per device for CDMA. And they shouldn't be required to do so, just to be able to build a cell phone. In fact, within the cellular device industry, we call this "the Qualcomm tax". Some are willing to pay the "tax", other are not; neither position prevents them from building cell phones, although the choice tends to restrict your devices to one set of carriers, or another (assuming you even have CDMA carriers in your country), unless you build a device capable of both (at which point, you pay the "tax", even if you never use the capability.