Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 22nd Oct 2012 13:36 UTC
"One of the exhibits Samsung has now made public tells an interesting tale. It's the slide presentation that Apple showed Samsung when it first tried (and failed) to get Samsung to license Apple's patents prior to the start of litigation. While some of the numbers were earlier reported on when the exhibit was used at trial, the slides themselves provide more data - specifically on the difference between what Apple wanted Samsung to pay for Windows phones and for Android phones. The slides punch huge holes in Apple's FRAND arguments. Apple and Microsoft complain to regulators about FRAND rates being excessive and oppressive at approximately $6 per unit, or 2.4%; but the Apple offer was not only at a much higher rate, it targeted Android in a way that seems deliberately designed to destroy its ability to compete in the marketplace." Eagerly awaiting the 45 paragraph comment explaining how this is completely fair and not hypocritical at all. Bonus points if it includes something about Eric Schmidt being on Apple's board, and, double bonus point if it mentions one of the QWERTY Android prototypes. Mega Epic Bonus if it somehow manages to draw a line from Edison, Tesla, to Jobs.
Thread beginning with comment 539844
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
RE[7]: Apples and oranges
by Alfman on Wed 24th Oct 2012 14:46
in reply to "RE[6]: Apples and oranges"
Member since:2011-01-28
oskeladden,
Thank you for that research!
Well, as illogical as it seems to not negotiate on price until after an official agreement, I guess I have a better feeling for why standards bodies agree to such vague "RAND" terms in the first place. Going through the thousands of potential patents to assess license fees up front is not something the standards body can afford to waste time doing, so they say "Screw it! We'll call them all RAND and move on."
I guess that I'm on the same page as the author; I dislike the ambiguities with the RAND approach, but I can understand why it's used in favor of getting bogged down in endless negotiations over what price to charge over individual bits of code.
My own opinion is if these firms themselves can't even be bothered to read each other's patents when building a standard, then what motivation should anyone, anywhere in the world ever have to read them either? If they had relevant technical merit in the first place, surely everyone on the standards committee would have read and understood each one of them. It reaffirms my belief that software patents have zero utility to devs who actually build stuff are mostly a means for lawyers to take profits out of software.
oskeladden, it occurs to me that you might be a patent lawyer yourself, are you? If so, no offence to you personally, I just liked the software field better before the lawyers got heavily involved 
Edited 2012-10-24 14:54 UTC
RE[8]: Apples and oranges
by oskeladden on Wed 24th Oct 2012 19:14
in reply to "RE[7]: Apples and oranges"
Member since:2009-08-05
oskeladden, it occurs to me that you might be a patent lawyer yourself, are you? If so, no offence to you personally, I just liked the software field better before the lawyers got heavily involved
Well, in a sense - 'real' patent lawyers tend to be scientists (or, at any rate, have degrees in science), but I did work with patents and IP generally. I haven't been in practice for around 12 years, though - I entered academia around the turn of the century.
I was a programmer before I became a lawyer, so I understand the issues involved. My personal view is that patents aren't really suitable for software - software needs sui generis protection, somewhat like plant varieties have. The real difficulty, though, is that it can be very hard to distinguish between software and hardware when you start thinking of embedded systems and even instructions hard-coded in printed circuit boards. That was how patent protection for coded computer instructions got started.
By itself, software patents actually wouldn't have been a disaster (indeed, the EPO hands them out quite frequently without causing the same level of problems that the USPTO does). The real problem came from the fact that the US Supreme Court decided that patents should be allowed on 'methods', because those could be inventions too. The result was that patents suddenly became available on any method implemented by a computer program, with the results we see today. I'm not sure where the law will go from here, because software patents are now so entrenched that it'll be hard to root them out, but as the ongoing litigation shows the system really is completely broken.
Features
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/13/13 14:35 UTC
The third and final WWDC product I want to talk about is - of course - OS X 10.9 Mavericks. While iOS 7 was clearly the focus of this year's WWDC, its venerable desktop counterpart certainly wasn't left behind. Apple announced OS X 10.9 Mavericks, the first OS X release not to carry the name of a big cat.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/11/13 17:07 UTC
We already talked about iOS 7 yesterday (after a night of sleep, it's only looking worse and worse - look at this, for Fiona's sake!), so now it's time to talk about the downright stunning and belly flutters-inducing new Mac Pro. As former owner and huge, huge, huge fan of the PowerMac G4 Cube - I haven't been this excited about an Apple product since, well, I would say the iMac G4. This is the Apple I used to love.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/10/13 23:13 UTC
Apple held its big keynote event thing at WWDC earlier this evening, but since I was away with friends I've had to read up on it later in the evening. The company announced iOS 7, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, and they gave a preview of the new Mac Pro. Especially the Mac Pro impressed me, and while iOS 7's new Holo/Metro-inspired theme looks messy and garish to me, I do commend Apple for finally breaking the mold. This news item will focus on iOS 7 - I'll dive into the Mac Pro and OS X 10.9 tomorrow (it's late here now).
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/08/13 14:57 UTC
And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/07/13 11:40 UTC
This story is getting bigger and bigger. Even though most Americans probably already knew, it is now official: the United States government, through its National Security Agency, is collecting the communications and data of all American citizens, and of non-Americans using American services, through a wide collaboration with the large companies in technology, like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and so on. Interestingly enough, the NSA itself, as well as the US government, have repeatedly and firmly denied this massive spying on Americans and non-Americans took place at all.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 06/04/13 12:45 UTC
Ah, patents - the never-ending scourge of the technology industry. Whether wielded by companies who don't actually make any products, or large corporations who abuse them because they can't compete in the market place or because they're simply jerks, they do the industry a huge disservice and are simply plain dangerous. According to The Wall Street Journal (circumvention link), president Obama is about to take several executive actions to address patent trolls - which may seem like a good idea, but I am very worried that all this will do is strengthen the positions of notorious patent system abusers such as Apple and Microsoft.
Linked by nfeske on 05/31/13 10:12 UTC
With version 13.05, the developers of the Genode OS Framework take measures to ensure that Genode continues to scale well with a growing number of users and the steadily broadening platform coverage. Further highlights are the improved SoC support for Exynos 5, OMAP4, Raspberry Pi, i.MX, and new components for realizing headless systems.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/29/13 16:59 UTC
At the D11 conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook once again took the stage to be interviewed by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. While most of the interview can be replicated by picking and reading 10 random Apple fanblog stories - there were still a number of very interesting things that warrant some closer scrutiny.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 17:26 UTC
So, the Xbox One disaster continues. Microsoft's policy for dealing with the used games market has reportedly leaked - and it's a clear and direct attack to destroy the used games market. Prices for used games will be set at the retail value of a new game, and retailers have to hook into Microsoft's computer systems and comply with Microsoft's terms and conditions.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/21/13 21:38 UTC
At an event earlier today, Microsoft unveiled the next Xbox - the third model, but confusingly named Xbox One. The big focus was TV, integrated Kinect, and all the other stuff we all expected to be forced down our throats. I think it took them 25 minutes to actually come to what should be the core of the story: gaming. Nothing groundbreaking in the gaming department, except for how Microsoft intends to handle the used games market and borrowing games from friends: pay up, buddy!More Features »
Sponsored Links
Member since:
2009-08-05
Right! The classic paper - which represents what is clearly now the majority view - is D. Lichtman, 'Understanding the RAND Commitment' 47 Houston Law Review 1023 (2010). It's also on SSRN, in case you're interested and don't have access to Lexis or HeinOnline - http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1783406
As you can see, the main point he makes is that a FRAND license is intended to ensure that a company cannot charge a higher royalty than the patent's ex ante value simply because it's become part of a standard, and that FRAND decouples the calculation of damages from the standard test. This is now the generally accepted position.
The main dissenter is Damien Geradin, of Tilburg University, who maintains that - in effect - FRAND commitments impose no real legal commitments. His views became very influential because he advised Qualcomm in their action against Nokia, but lost ground once people who understood contract law a bit better entered the debate. His argument is in effect a patent owner's brief, which is interesting as a matter of competition law and competition economics but has no real basis in Anglo-American contract law - contract interpretation focuses on giving effect to the parties' commercial purpose, and as Douglas Lichtman points out in his piece Geradin's arguments leads to absurd results when seen from this perspective.
The footnotes to Lichtman's paper give you a good review of the literature up to 2010. There've been a few more papers since then, but mostly from an antitrust / competition law perspective.