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Apple Loses Patent Suit To University of Wisconsin, Faces Huge Damages (reuters.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Apple has frequently been in the news for various patent battles, but it's usually against one of their competitors. This time, Apple is on the losing end, and they're losing to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A jury found that the university's patent on improving processor efficiency (5,781,752) was valid, and Apple's A7, A8, and A8X chips infringed upon it. Those chips are found within recent iPhone and iPad models, which generated huge amounts of money. Because of the ruling, Apple could be liable for up to $826.4 million in damages, to be determined by later phases of the trial.
I'm generally pretty against patents.
However, I love seeing bad things happen to bad people, especially if it's ironic punishment. Yeah patents should probably be scrapped, but anyone who tries to patent rounded courners and then sues deserves to lose patent lawsuits.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Isn't that Apple's mantra?
This story made me laugh. However I feel Apple will whittle away at the amount and get away with paying a tiny fraction.
Is there a better article somewhere that explains WHAT was the issue?
Great - Apple should put as much money as it pays out in patent settlements into bribing ... err, lobbying ... politicians to enact comprehensive patent reform to get rid of this kind of economy-crushing activity.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I could swear RISC processors, namely acorn archimedes and MIPS were doing that before that patent was filled...
So if Apple were forced to pay this money, who would end up receiving it? The UW students? Faculty? Administrators? The taxpayers who helped foot the bill for the state-funded UW?
I'm pretty sure there's more loose change than that in the couch cushions at one infinite loop.
The bigger question: does it also occur in the A9/A9X, or were they just not out when the lawsuit was filed. Could UW request an injunction against the current crop of processors as well?
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Apple has more in the bank than 112 of 162 countries in the world combined (is it still only $200 billion) .
Whether or not they whittle away at the amount (they will), it isn't going to be financially relevant to Apple.
oh yes, and that chip thing.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
This is a very technical patent having to do with prediction. Not predicting branches, but predicting data. It might even be valid - I haven't kept up with processor architecture for too long. The gigantic question is: given the state of the art at the time this patent was filed, is it a logical extension obvious to a person "skilled in the art". That would be a very tough question to answer, even for an expert in the field.
Just how is a jury of non-technical people supposed to figure this out?
I'm sure they will have heard from Apple's experts: "This is obvious, a kid could figure it out", and the university's experts: "wow, what a clever invention". How will they have judged and compared these expert opinions? Their charisma? Their hairstyle?
The whole patent system is one gigantic disaster. Even for potentially valid patents, the process is just wrong.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Wouldn't we be surprised if Apple decided to simply pay the fine in cash, since they made such huge amounts with it anyway, and simultaniously give something back to the 'community' for further research and education?
Here's a nice windfall for the Job Creators of Wisconsin. This may be as much as another $800 million you can cut from University funding.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Is it trolling or flamebait to point that large companies are constantly suing one another over patents which mostly seem obvious to us, and that it's about time one of them came up short?
I don't care if you're a Microsoft fanboi, an Apple fanboi, a Google fanboi, or a Samsung fanboi ... these patents and the lawsuits which stem from them more or less amount of a bunch of multi-billion dollar corporations carving up the industry and making sure nobody else can get into the game.
Patents are probably doing more to stifle innovation that foster it, precisely because they all patent even the smallest thing to have in their war chest.
Honestly, seeing the big players getting screwed in patent lawsuits gives me hope at some point they'll all wise up and start pushing for patent reform themselves.
Because as long as it's a stacked deck which makes them huge amounts of money, they have no interest in things ever changing. If the only way for things to change is by costing these guys a bunch of money, bring it on.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Apple should be required to pay twice the entirety of the gross sales of all the infringing devices. That way, they're guaranteed to take a loss for this behavior, and will at least think twice before trying something like this again.
The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), the people who actually hold the patents (the university isn't allowed to have them directly), did a similar thing to Intel not all that long ago (5 years?). I guess I can't complain since WARF funds my research (and a lot of research on campus -- having an internal funding mechanism is great). However, I recall that a bunch of the Intel money was supposed to go to the college of engineering (COE), which seems to have spent the money redecorating Engineering Hall (which, admittedly, is super ugly) and cutting ECE teaching assistant positions. It would be nice if the COE got a chunk of this and actually put it to good use...
Apple has somewhere around $200 billion in cash. If they have to pay $823 million they still will have around $200 billion in cash.
If you buy something for around $200, do you care if it's $200 or $200.80? Do you really miss the extra 0.80?
The money goes to the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF). The university isn't allowed to own the patents directly. That means that the university and state can't just raid the money as they see fit, which is probably a good thing.
WARF doles out the money in various ways. Much goes to research on campus, some goes to "faculty retention" (i.e. when another university tries to poach a strong faculty member, WARF steps in with money to keep them here), some is administrative costs (WARF assists university personnel in getting patents), some gets returned directly to the university, some goes to the people who did the research to get the patent, etc.
In short, the answer is "all of the above and more".
I responded to the wrong post --- sorry. Stupid beta.
Ever since a court decision 10-20 years ago, most companies pay nothing for a patent assignment. It used to be that you had to have "tangible consideration", so you assigned your patent for a dollar. I heard from colleagues that Hughes Aircraft (pre-GM) gave you a copy of any book rebound in leather. Some companies would pay a bonus for a filed patent application (a few hundred bucks, maybe).
Now, though, the consideration (in a contracts law sense) is that you are allowed to keep working for the company.
Universities tend to have schemes where the inventor gets 25% of the royalties, the institution gets 75%. Often, they will also do some sort of matching thing, where if the inventor invests their 25% into research at the institution, they'll kick in a matching amount (e.g. you get 50% to improve your lab, and the uni spends 50% on anything else it wants to)
I'm sorry for my reply. Please accept my sincere apologies. You are right, that is couch cushion money to Apple.
I now see that I was in the wrong, and I will endeavour to better myself in the future.
I'm generally pretty against patents.
Fair enough. Patents do have their problems and I would agree that our current patent system has huge flaws. So what is your alternative solution to the free rider problem? That problem is the primary reason why patents (and copyrights) exist. I'm not opposed in principle to scrapping patents and doing something else. Our current system clearly needs major reforms but I have yet to hear anyone come up with any solution to the free rider problem that is better than a reformed version of a patent process. We know what scrapping the patent system would result in (it would not be good) because there are plenty of countries without such a system and it's easy to see the effects on their economies. So tell me, how do we solve the free rider problem so that we can get rid of patents? (and no, just ditching them wholesale will not work and won't happen anyway)
Does this mean governor Scooter Walker can cut even more out of their budget?
'Huge' damages against Apple of sub-1 billion is not all that noteworthy when revenue Q1 alone was $78+ billion. I reminds me of when Attorney General Janet Reno was going to hold Microsoft in Contempt threatening to fine $1 per day and Gate's response was something to the affect of "1 make a million an hour, f*ck them".
I am not an apple fanboy, but I have to say that any post bitching about "one mouse button" in 2015 should automatically get a -1.
Ah, but is it a troll, or flamebait? Since you're not an apple fanboy and it's 2015 you should be able to tell the difference.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I would have modded him up if he wasn't at 5 already.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
As with almost all patents, most definitely not the people who actually came up with the invention.
That is simply false. Researchers here aren't required to go through the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF) to get patents. If the researchers decide to, they make a contract with WARF where the researchers get a cut of the profits. Even grad students often get a cut.
I don't know how it works at other universities, but universities aren't for profit corporations -- at least not yet. If universities didn't give faculty a cut of patent revenu, I'd imagine they'd soon find their strong, patent-generating faculty going elsewhere.
it ain't over 'til it's over.
Apple is currently earning around $18 billion in profit each quarter. So, while I'm sure it will be a boon for Wisconsin and Apple will try to get out of paying it - $823 million isn't going to hurt Apple's bottom line too much. I'm sure they see it as the cost of doing business.
Wow! Politeness on Slashdot? Must be a joke?
If the only way for things to change is by costing these guys a bunch of money, bring it on
To Apple, a half a billion dollars is not "big money".
These university patents are paid for by the tax-paying public, why does this no longer make them public domain?
I'm curious, have others licensed this tech, or is Apple simply the first to get sued? The article mentioned Intel, but what about other mobile manufacturers?
I am not an apple fanboy, but I have to say that any post bitching about "one mouse button" in 2015 should automatically get a -1.
This is true. One button was apparently too confusing so they removed that. :-)
I've been trying to figure out if this patent covers something ARM implemented, or something Apple added when they modified the ARM A7 and A8 processor designs for their own devices. That is, did UWM sue Apple as a proxy and a prelude to suing every other company out there using an ARM processor? Which would be a huge deal. Or does the reach of this patent end here (other than eliminating predictive branch ordering from future processors until the patent expires)? Which is not very newsworthy except for Apple.
Unfortunately all the news articles I've found on it so far are written at the level of a jury of non-technical people, and provide no information which could answer this really important question. Maybe someone here has come across a better article?
Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley wrote:
I heard you on my wireless back in fifty-two
UnknowingFool wrote:
The problem with the "no wireless" part of the comparison back then was the Nomad didn't have wireless either.
Several Creative Nomad models included an FM radio, which is more wireless than anything on the first generation iPod classic. In fact, a lot of present-day smartphone chipsets include an FM radio, but carriers have disabled them to sell bigger data plans.
I don't care if you're a Microsoft fanboi, an Apple fanboi, a Google fanboi, or a Samsung fanboi ... these patents and the lawsuits which stem from them more or less amount of a bunch of multi-billion dollar corporations carving up the industry and making sure nobody else can get into the game.
You should leave Google out of that list. Google has never filed a non-defensive patent lawsuit, and seems pretty sincere about not using patents in the way you describe. I'm not sure about Samsung. MS and Apple definitely use patents as offensive weapons, regularly and aggressively.
However, you're not at all wrong about the effect of the system. Google discovered this. Google tried to ignore the patent game for years and then realized that you can't play in this space without a patent war chest to defend yourself. Being a multi-billion dollar corporation with lots of disposable cash, Google could and did buy such a war chest. Small players can't.
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This is effectively an instruction prefetch and branch prediction scheme. How does every modern multi-core processor not infringe on this patient or have (all) other manufactures licensed it from UofWis? Didn't they review the patents that Samsung had licensed for the ARM processors that preceded the A4 and its successors?
universities aren't for profit corporations
True, not all regionally accredited universities are for profit. Some are though, such as the University of Phoenix (NASDAQ: APOL).
Apple is the world famous patent troll, demanding billions for trivial recreation of bathroom slide lock on a phone screen. It's like patenting cat videos in the world full of cats.
This patent, on the other hand, appears to be a genuine, non-trivial invention. I hope they pay through their nose and get impacted enough to rethink what kind of IP laws they want to lobby for in future.
This ruling should match the Samsung rulings, and prevent any products from being shipped that violate this patent. You can't cherry pick the damages based on the involved companies.
I am sure the infringement paid itself off many times over by the sales surge due to higher speeds of the products Apple sold. Tempest in a teapot at best.
__________
The more I know people, the more I love animals
The GrandParent comment says that there was prior art. That invalidates anything coming later.
The problem here is that we acquiesce to an insanity. Universities were supposed to produce knowledge and to teach students, instead they seem to concentrate on money making and football, oh wait, it is the same. I feel so good about how my tax money is being spent.
nt
"the present invention provides a speculation decision circuit for use in a processor capable of executing program instructions in an execution order differing from the program order of the instructions"
Dynamically optimize the execution order of the instruction set depending on previous hits or misses.
I haven't touched a Mac in a couple years, but I thought that the whole mouse pad was now a button, so still one button :)
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I haven't touched a Mac in a couple years, but I thought that the whole mouse pad was now a button, so still one button :)
Yes, though I believe that the newest "force" version doesn't click anymore. It was sarcasm following the earlier posts and the lack of a visible button ;-)
Wow, with all that money coming in, that means they can reduce tuition fees, right? Right??
Wisconsin-Madison is a state-supported school. I realize these days it's considered okay to double- and triple-dip into taxpayers pockets, but this system where schools get to have tax money for research, and then patent the results for profit, is completely wrong. As a citizen, it means I'm paying for the research, then paying AGAIN to have any access to it. Based on state-granted monopoly. At best, any revenue derived from these university patents should go back into the general fund, not for the (unencumbered) sole use of the school.
Don't know about Wisconsin but for the University of California (UC) system the the IP licensing helps pay for the university system in general, i.e. avoids a dip into taxpayer pockets. 50% of the revenue goes to fund the statewide UC system in general, 25% goes to the department(s) of the team members, and 25% goes to the team. The licensing basically funds much research, its a virtuous circle providing more research dollars than would have been available in a purely taxpayer funded system.
On the licensing side it is a "discriminatory" system, smaller and local organizations get much lower fees than multinational conglomerates operating outside of California. So California residents also benefit by the promotion of jobs in California.
Your assumption that state residents are inherently harmed by such IP licensing practices is mistaken.
The invention was a result of research, funded by the public, so the public should own the patent. It should be under an MIT or BSD-style license in the public domain.
That makes more sense for federally funded projects than state funded. If state funded there would be free rides from the other states, in addition to the international free rides both federal and state funded projects would have.
FWIW the University of California system has a "discriminator" licensing scheme where smaller and local organizations get lower fees. Giving back to the California public in the sense of jobs but also in the sense that the fees help pay for the statewide university system (50% of fee revenue, 25% to team's department(s), 25% to team). It ends up being a virtuous circle in that the state gets more research dollars than it would have in a purely taxpayer funded system.
Also the University of California's BSD license was covering copyrighted IP not patented IP. Two very different things.
To dialogue more cooperatively: I do believe in the possibility of a system that would somehow incentivize creators without pretending it's possible to own a thought, everywhere in the universe simultaneously forever.
So what is your system? You believe it is possible so either give up the details or concede that you are basically arguing in favor of patents. Just "believing in the possibility" is meaningless. This is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Nobody has actual ideas that improve things. You either get modest improvements to the status quo patent system or you get people wanting to abolish all patents with no care as to the consequences of doing that. Unless you have a better way to deal with the free rider problem you aren't improving things and abolishing patents (even with all their problems) will demonstrably not improve people's economic lives overall.
As you said, Google didn't have a large patent war chest until recently. This explains why they couldn't go on the offensive: they would have gotten eaten alive.
Now that they've purchased a patent portfolio, they're like every other company: protect your IP at all costs. Google is no different than Apple, Microsoft, or Samsung. In fact they need to protect their IP or risk losing it.
As for Google never filing a non-defensive patent lawsuit, that's not true. A quick Duck Duck Go search reveals this:
http://www.informationweek.com...
And there are plenty of examples of Google trolling other companies with patents as well:
http://blog.splitwise.com/2013...
Google should stay on the list, for sure.
Using WARF is _voluntary_; UW researchers don't have to go through them. They can patented inventions on their own and take all the profit if they'd like (and pay all the filing costs, pitch it to companies, sue infringes, etc. on their own). Moreover, what middlemen take the money? The money returns to the university one way or another -- mostly as research grants within the university, not pocketed by a CEO.
Chill out.
True. I should have said that _public_ universities aren't for profit corporations.
Lawyers galore, again.
1. First, they come see companies, explaining that they need a patent war chest. Everybody is sincere and lawyers win.
2. Then they explain to some CEO/CFO/shareholders that they could use it to gain more money with it (or as a strategical weapon against small companies endangering their business). Lawyers win again and more other companies need to go to step 1.
You need a CEO with very strong feelings about patents to resist the temptation of using patents the wrong way.
I'm giving up mod points to reply here but the articles linked to above provide no evidence of the claims made by the parent.
CapS said:
As for Google never filing a non-defensive patent lawsuit, that's not true. A quick Duck Duck Go search reveals this:
http://www.informationweek.com...
Did you even bother to look at the article you linked to? It says:
Google, believing that litigation was imminent, responded by asking the court to issue a declaratory judgment that it is not infringing Netlist's patent and that Netlist's patent isn't valid.
That is pretty much the exact opposite of an offensive patent suit.
Then CapS said:
And there are plenty of examples of Google trolling other companies with patents as well:
http://blog.splitwise.com/2013...
In this article Google applied for a patent and then, horrors, asked a company that was in the same field to get on board a patent reform initiative. Applying for patents and advocating for patent reform is not the same thing as being a patent troll. In the patent frenzied world of 2013, Google had to acquire patents to defend themselves. It was part of the cost of doing business in the tech arena. You have provided ZERO evidence that Google has switched gears and started to file offensive patent suits. If there are plenty of examples of Google trolling other companies with patents then please provide a link to at least one such case otherwise you are just full of shenanigans.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
If you're shopping for a high-end laptop, then there is no (or little) Apple tax. However, Apple just doesn't make low-end products. So if you're looking at a $400 Windows laptop (Dell Inspiron 15 3000), there simply is no competing Apple machine. Apple's lowest-end laptop starts at $900.
You should leave Google out of that list. Google has never filed a non-defensive patent lawsuit, and seems pretty sincere about not using patents in the way you describe. I'm not sure about Samsung. MS and Apple definitely use patents as offensive weapons, regularly and aggressively.
Bullshit, Google has used Motorola to file lawsuits against the others as well.
You should read your links, they don't say what you think they say. In fact, they say what I said. If Google has acted offensively, much less trollishly, it should be easy to find examples. So why didn't you?
Because there aren't any.
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It's worse than that, unfortunately. Google had a CEO with very strong feelings about patents, but after Google and its partners got sued repeatedly and were able to do nothing about it, Page finally realized that the lawyers were right. Given the patent system we have, Google had to have a patent war chest.
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Actually, Page wasn't CEO at the time, though it was still Page and Brin that drove the no-patents decision.
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Even if you use UW facilities for research? That's doubtful.
Doubt all you want, the facts are the facts.
Here's WARF:
UW–Madison faculty, staff and students are not obligated to assign their intellectual property to WARF, unless required to do so by federal law or the terms of a sponsored research agreement with a third party.
http://www.warf.org/about-us/f...
Here's the official UW Policy:
he UW is unique among U.S. universities in that it does not claim ownership rights in the intellectual property generated by its faculty, staff, or students, except when required by funding agreements. UW inventors do, however, have an obligation to disclose all inventions created while carrying out university duties, using any university funding, or using university premises, supplies, or equipment. It is the role of the UW–Madison Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education to perform an equity review for each UW–Madison invention disclosure to determine what obligations may attach to each invention and who may have rights to the invention.
https://research.wisc.edu/proj...
Note that you have to disclose the invention to WARF. However, you don't have to give it to them. You have to disclose it because some (but not all) outside grants require inventions be assigned to the university, and WARF wants to make sure you're following the terms of the grant. However, that is not the University's fault. I speak as someone who has disclosed an invention to WARF. They looked it over, determined that it was not covered by a grant that requires I give up the invention, and told me that I could do what I wanted.
WARF and lawyers are the middleman
By that standard, it doesn't matter who owns the patent: any time there is a patent lawsuit there are middleman because lawyers are involved. Of course, that's a silly standard because they don't "make all the money" as you claimed a few posts ago. WARF doesn't really make money since it's a non-profit, and as noted above, despite your disbelief, you can cut WARF out of the loop.
You should leave Google out of that list. Google has never filed a non-defensive patent lawsuit, and seems pretty sincere about not using patents in the way you describe. I'm not sure about Samsung. MS and Apple definitely use patents as offensive weapons, regularly and aggressively.
Bullshit, Google has used Motorola to file lawsuits against the others as well.
Nope.
There was one Motorola suit which is commonly cited as a counterexample... which Motorola filed before Google acquired Motorola. By the time Google got involved, the defendant had filed a countersuit which left Google with no choice but to defend.
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I did read the links. The first was an example of Google taking the offensive in a patent lawsuit (which you said didn't exist). The second was Google using patents to stifle innovation and bring down smaller developers. In each of these examples the smaller companies are getting screwed.
Here's a different example:
http://www.imore.com/google-de...
To quote the article:
Google is just like any other large tech company; they're playing the patent game.
Apple will appeal and they will win
...you won't pay *half* that.
$826.4 million huge compared to my bank account. For Apple is is less then 0.5% of their cash on hand. Not value...actual cash on hand. For a patent on an item as central as the CPU...petty cash it.
I did read the links. The first was an example of Google taking the offensive in a patent lawsuit
How in the world is invalidating someone's patent an offensive use of patents? You can't get any more defensive than invalidating a patent that you think might be used against you... and you're doing the world a public service as well, because if the patent is invalidated it can't be used against anyone else, either.
The second was Google using patents to stifle innovation and bring down smaller developers.
Nonsense. It was about Google *applying* for a patent, not using a patent. Those are entirely different things. Obtaining lots of patents is perfectly consistent with Google's defensive stance. You can't defend with what you don't have. The fact that the author of the article called the filing "patent trolling" proves only that he doesn't know what trolling is.
Your third exmple is a classic defensive patent use. Apple had already filed suit against Google over patents Apple alleged Google had infringed, so Google filed a countersuit alleging infringement of Google-owned patents. That's how you use patents defensively in court, by filing a countersuit. Another way to use them defensively is in posturing before you get to court, or with cross-licensing agreements.
Google is just like any other large tech company; they're playing the patent game.
If so, you're completely unable to provide any evidence of it, and it would be easy to find evidence if it were true.
What you have proved is that there are bloggers who (a) don't know anything about how patents are created, used and defended and (b) really want to find evidence that Google isn't living up to its claims about only using patents defensively.
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Actually, Page wasn't CEO at the time, though it was still Page and Brin that drove the no-patents decision.
No patents, ehh? https://www.google.com/patents...
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I don't think you understand. Google is playing the patent game here. At the beginning they didn't have the patent portfolio, so instead they had to try to invalidate everyone else's patents--even aggressively, taking the offensive by suing first (as I showed in the first example). Now that they have the portfolio, they can push folks around. Google is just like any other public company, they are beholden to their shareholders and do what is in the best interest of making the most money and protecting their assets. Don't be fooled; there is no higher standard here. Google is even working to get back with increased presence in China, despite being against government censorship. The dollar amount is too large for Google to keep pretending like they live to a higher standard.
And let's get back to the OP's quote that you had an issue with:
The first two examples I gave I think are pretty illustrative of the issue here, and Google is a major player. Patent reform is second only perhaps to gun control and changes to copyright law that need to happen in the US, and given the lack of movement all of these cases I'm not very confident it will happen, unfortunately.
This is not a troll, if anything it's flamebait.
7 direct replies, and none of them a flame. Troll.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
At the beginning they didn't have the patent portfolio, so instead they had to try to invalidate everyone else's patents--even aggressively, taking the offensive by suing first (as I showed in the first example).
Umm, what part of "suing to invalidate a patent is not offensive" do you not get?
Now that they have the portfolio, they can push folks around.
Then you should be able to show some evidence of them doing that. Why haven't you?
The first two examples I gave I think are pretty illustrative of the issue here, and Google is a major player.
Ummm, the first example was purely defensive, and you just said was because Google wasn't a major player (didn't have patents). The second example was merely Google filing for a patent, not actually doing anything to anyone... not filing a lawsuit, not even telling anyone about their patent application.
I don't see how you don't get this.
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Actually, Page wasn't CEO at the time, though it was still Page and Brin that drove the no-patents decision.
No patents, ehh? https://www.google.com/patents...
Are you being intentionally obtuse? A handful of patent filings don't constitute a corporate patent strategy.
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Actually, Page wasn't CEO at the time, though it was still Page and Brin that drove the no-patents decision.
No patents, ehh? https://www.google.com/patents...
Are you being intentionally obtuse? A handful of patent filings don't constitute a corporate patent strategy.
Yeah, just like being sort of evil doesn't mean you are actually evil. Or like being a little pregnant.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree. Google sued the other party first, which is an extremely offensive move and again is a specific example that goes against your original statement. Suing to invalidate a patent can be offensive, and this case shows this. Google has shown many times (Java, Android, server technologies, and more) that it does not respect patents or intellectual property. While we may agree that patent reform needs to happen--it hasn't happened yet. The end result is if you have a small technology company and Google uses your patented technology without paying you, you don't even think about trying to contact them, they will put you out of business with a team of lawyers.
And now they're working both sides of the game: they're using their own patent portfolio to sue other companies *and* they're not respecting other people's patents at the same time.