"Motorola Mobility has been granted an injunction against the distribution of key Microsoft products in Germany. The sales ban covers the Xbox 360 games console, Windows 7 system software, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player. It follows a ruling that Microsoft had infringed two patents necessary to offer H.264 video coding and playback." But... But... The MPEG-LA, Apple, and Microsoft have been lying to us all this time about the safety of using H264 over WebM, with their supporters blindly parroting the party line? This surprises me greatly and deeply, and I dare say I have not seen this coming at all. Not at all. No sir. Not at all.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:2011-05-12
Member since:2011-10-12
Well considering the Motorola Mobility merger with Google, I think many people will refrain from naming them a patent troll for their own personal reasons. The fact that they seem to be attacking companies left and right using FRAND patents doesn't seem to have any effect on them.
Member since:2006-08-18
The difference is that this Motorola Litigation against Microsoft is an obvious retaliation.
And this is very different from attacking first.
Calling Motorola an "evil patent troll" on the ground that they strike back at Microsoft is like calling someone an "horrible violent man" on the ground that he is defending himself against an armed robbery.
There are situations in which it is completely wrong to say that both sides are "equivalent".
When there is a "wrongdoer" and a "defender", it is right to cheer up the defender, even if it has to use the same methods as the wrongdoer to be effective, and most of all, to teach him a lesson.
Don't forget that Motorola/Google has not been attacking about "anyone", just the major patent trolls which have attacked the Android Ecosystem lately. Which is "defense".
Member since:2011-01-28
MOS6510,
It sounds like that definition was arrived at by manufacturers who want to distance themselves from other patent holders who's primary business model is suing real manufacturers for royalties. And that's fair enough, clearly one business model is much worse than the other.
However it's kind of absurd to say the bad behavior of patent trolling can be negated just because of how the patents may be used internally. The same behavior deserves to be called the same thing regardless of who does it, so both deserve the patent troll label.
Maybe we need two sub-classifications: Sue-only patent trolls versus sue-plus patent trolls?
Edited 2012-05-02 14:10 UTC
OSNews is a sponsor of this year's O'Reilly OSCON in Portland, Oregon, USA. A lucky OSNews reader will win a free three-day pass, including two tutorials days. To win the pass, post a comment on this story saying something about Open Source Software or OSCON. We'll pick a winner at random next week. If you don't have an OSNews account, you may email us your entry. Part of the conference is the 9th annual Open Source Awards, and today the 16th is the deadline for nominations. If you'd like to nominate an outstanding open source contributor, do it here. Read on for more information about OSCON. Update: The 20% discount code for OSNews readers is "OSN."
"Windows is indeed slower than other operating systems in many scenarios, and the gap is worsening." That's one way to start an insider explanation of why Windows' performance isn't up to snuff. Written by someone who actually contributes code to the Windows NT kernel, the comment on Hacker News, later deleted but reposted with permission on Marc Bevand's blog, paints a very dreary picture of the state of Windows development. The root issue? Think of how Linux is developed, and you'll know the answer.
This is one of those news items that's fun to write, fun to read, fun to comment on, and where no one will be able to say anything unkind. It's all just one big ball of awesome fluffiness. TuneTracker, the BeOS radio automation software, has just released something very special: TuneTracker System 5, the first version designed entirely and specifically for Haiku. In fact, it actually includes Haiku in the software package. Better yet, TuneTracker also unveiled several system-in-a-box products - which have Haiku and TuneTracker pre-installed.
Exactly twenty years ago, a document was published that played a huge role in establishing the web as we know it today. Twenty years later, and this simple and straightforward document is proof of an irrefutable fact: while closed technologies can change markets, open technologies can change the world.
Oh multitasking. That staple of computing that got thrown out the window with many modern smartphones. We got some rudimentary thing in its place - but even as multitasking on phone and tablets improves, its user-visible side remains cumbersome. Windows 8 has a neat implementation, and now it's time Android follows in it footsteps.They're here! Whether that excites you or not remains to be seen, but the Galaxy S4, which will most likely become the best selling Android smartphone of the year by a huge margin, has been reviewed by all the major sites, and there's lots of interesting conclusions in there - although I think most of you will get the gist.Nokia has posted its quarterly results for the first quarter of 2013, and just like the quarters that came before, there's not a whole lot of good news in there. The rise in Lumia sales still can't even dream of making up for the sales drop in Symbian phones, and when broken down in versions, the sales figures for Windows Phone 8 Lumias in particular are very disappointing. In North America, Nokia is getting slaughtered.
The day has finally come: Google has started shipping Google Glass to the lucky few early adopters. Now that it's shipping, Google has also unveiled a lot more about the API and the specifications of the device itself. While the company had already given out substantial details at earlier occasions, there are still a few surprises here.
Almost exactly three years ago, I wrote about why OSNews was no longer OSNews: the alternative operating system scene had died, and OSNews, too, had to go with the times and move towards reporting on a new wave of operating systems - mobile, and all the repercussions that the explosion of smartphones and tablets have caused. Still, I was wondering something today: why aren't we seeing alternative operating systems on mobile?You can say what you will about Windows Phone and Windows 8's Metro interface (I refuse to drop that name) - it's inefficient, unpopular, cumbersome, beautiful, ugly, organised, clean, limiting - but there's one thing we can all agree on: it's unique and distinctive. CNet has published a profile of Microsoft's Albert Shum, the man behind Metro, and he highlights what I think is at the very core of Microsoft's problems in mobile right now.
Member since:
2010-03-22
While it's a relatively new phrase and may not have a standard definition, many people (and Wikipedia) hold that a company that's a "patent troll" doesn't make anything or use patents for purposes other than taking legal action.
Motorola make a lot of stuff: phones, devices, etc, and most likely use the H264 codec in them. Hence, they are making use of their patents.
By that definition, they are not patent trolls.