Anyone who did not see this one coming after Microsoft’s patent deal with HTC and Apple’s meticulousness in avoiding Windows Mobile in its suit against HTC hasn’t been paying attention. Microsoft has filed a patent complaint with the US International Trade Commission, as well as a patent lawsuit in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington against Motorola over its Android-based devices.
Well, paint me red and call me a girl scout – Microsoft has sued Motorola over the company’s Android-based devices. According to Microsoft, Motorola infringes upon nine of its patents relating to a whole array of stuff – with Microsoft being in the business for this long, you can barely take a piss without violating one of Redmond’s patents.
“The patents at issue relate to a range of functionality embodied in Motorola’s Android smartphone devices that are essential to the smartphone user experience, including synchronizing email, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power,” states Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing at Microsoft (write that on a business card).
Let me put on my black helicopter t-shirt for a minute while I hang up my “The truth is out there”-poster, but for some reason, this doesn’t surprise me. Despite their respective fanboys beating each other with sticks, Microsoft and Apple have always been very close allies and business partners – including several cross-licensing patent deals between the two giants.
So, when Apple sued HTC (“A positive development”, according to Microsoft), Cupertino was very careful and incredibly thorough in making sure that the lawsuit would target Android specifically, leaving Windows Mobile out of the picture – even though functionality of the two most certainly overlap a great deal. Then we got the news that Microsoft had signed a patent licensing deal with HTC.
And now we have Microsoft suing Motorola. I’m sorry, but all this reeks of a combined effort between Microsoft and Apple to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt about the Android platform. Apple’s iOS is in the process of being overrun by Android, and Windows Phone 7 will have a relatively hard time entering the market while Android is stealing all the non-iPhone thunder. Combine this with the historically close ties between Redmond and Cupertino, et voilà .
I’m not sure if I’m crazy or a genius (I opt for the former), but something ain’t right here. I want to believe.
Patent #512678 – “Reclaiming free storage space using a uni-directional stream protocol.”
Holy shit. So you really can’t even take a piss without violating a patent… (!)
LOL…
Edited 2010-10-01 21:46 UTC
-I P freely! (as in bart simpson calls moe)
-No you’re not, you infringe my IP. Pay up!
Edited 2010-10-04 19:08 UTC
Ooohhh, lookie here. Guess who’s about to become an enemy of software patents. Patents are so vague that they’ve become an exclusive license to do something, rather than a patent on the way it’s done. If Microsoft have a patent on synchronising email, you can bet it will just be something like “a means of viewing electronic mail on multiple devices”,no matter what method of synchronisation is used, you still violate the patent. Seriously, the mafia couldn’t have done a better protectioon raquet. “Nice portfolio of devices you have there… Be a shame if we had to stop you from selling a few”.
Apple and Microsoft have enough patents that they both understand it makes no sense to pursue litigation against one another.
In contrast, Android has no such patent protection and so both are going to leverage their respective patent portfolio to improve their competitiveness.
Ultimately, the combined royalties these OEM’s will be forced to pay will wind up exceeding the cost of a Windows Mobile license which is exactly what Microsoft needs to be competitive in this space.
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I really don’t understand Motorola and Google even less.
You can be 100% sure MS first approached Motorola the same way MS approached HTC: MS asked behind closed doors for licensing fees.
Unlike HTC Motorola obviously refused.
What I don’t understand about Goole is their inaction after Apple vs HTC and MS vs HTC.
After Apple sued HTC and HTC licensed Android patents from MS, the only logical step by Google would have been to steer the Open Handset Alliance to set up a patent pool similar to what the MPEG LA does:
Companies can get a pile of cellphone-related patents at a fix cost and licensing would be even free if no more than a certain number of Android-powered units are shipped per year — encouraging startups to adopt Android.
But instead of doing that, the situation is as follows:
Use Android and you basically ask to get sued.
Use MeeGo and have Nokia and Intel watch your back: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/04/meego_linux_mobile_android_…
What’s to get?
Microsoft didn’t write any of the software on Motorola’s phone.
Why should Motorola pay Microsoft, and why should Microsoft be allowed to get away with extortion and racketeering like that?
My information about Motorola is that they are a firm supporter of software patents.
If they want other companies to respect their patents, it’s only fair if they respect the ones from MS as well.
I’ve never seen a press release or anything by Motorola that they active fight software patents and that their refusal to license from MS is a political statement against those patents.
If that was the case, I’d fully support Motorola. But as long as I don’t have different info about Moto, I merely see this as a dispute between two software patent proponents. Whoever wins doesn’t matter because neither company has any plans to do lobby work for abolishing software patents.
If you have different info about Motorola, I’ll revoke my comment.
Until then: Within Moto’s mindset as software patent supporter, Moto should’ve been paying MS.
No. Even if they are supporter of patents, free software (which android is) is incompatible with patents. If they want to pay to microsoft, they might as well stop using android and become Microsoft OEM and slave. If they pay to Microsoft and continue using Android, they should be boycotted until bankruptcy, like Novell. Only way to stop this madness is to show teeth to a bully and boycott those who don’t.
Edited 2010-10-03 02:51 UTC
No, it’s not. Except the BSD/MIT licenses, pretty much every somewhat common FOSS license handles patents in an affirmative way.
They usually say that the distributor of the FOSS code also gives a royalty-free patent license to the receiving parties.
I’m not aware of any FOSS license that prohibits the use of patented techniques.
Your argument makes no sense.
1.) You seem to only have a problem with Microsoft’s involvement. You don’t seem to care that Android inventor Google also owns software patents.
2.) If you want to boycott someone, boycott all software patent supporters, incl. Google.
3.) Nobody with relevance boycotts Novell. Despite Novell’s open attitude towards sellout (and if I understand reports right, Novell primarily wants to get rid of the Netware branch), the company overall is healthy with cash reserves of IIRC 1 billion US dollar.
Novell is the 2nd largesst Linux distributor after Red Hat and also one of the biggest FOSS contributors.
If you want to boycott Novell, show guts and boycott every line on code that was ever written by Novell. Good luck with that….
You obviously misunderstood what I meant. When I said “incompatible with patents”, I meant incompatible with paying royalties. I thought it was obvious. That is what Microsoft want. To pay them royalties per copy, for software they didn’t make. Free software is incompatible with that, regardless of the license. If Microsoft gets it’s way, then software is not free anymore because license is not sufficient to use software. You would have to contact Microsoft for patent license. So that is parasitic, they try to make other people’s work proprietary. Microsoft only can do that because they are not involved directly with that software, if they would be distributing free software themselves, they would be giving out patent license with distribution.
for other part:
1) As I descibed above, Google’s patents are not problem because Google is distributing Android, and not going around and trolling people in order to extort patent royalties. They couldn’t even do that because they have given out irrevocable patent license with every copy of Android. Most of the code in Android is GPL and ASL. Both licenses have patent grant, so Google can’t tomorrow turn around and sue.
2) Show me where Google is supporting patents? Patenting something to defend themselves from lawsuits is one thing (and I don’t really like that either, but who want to survive patent system has to do it), and supporting softawre patents is completely another thing.
3) You are wrong, lots of people are avoiding everything Novell. You could chose (completely arbitrary) that everyone doing so is irrelevant in your opinion, but I could say that your opinion is irrelevant too. And that is not topic here.
That should mean that you need to boycott like Microsoft want as all to do. It is fallacious. I don’t see why should I care who contribute GPL code I am using, since Novell don’t get any money from my use of Fedora, Ubuntu or RHEL. What should be avoided to hurt Novell is all flavours of SUSE. And I do so not because somebody will sue me, but because I don’t need Microsoft approved Linux, and Novell should get a message that nobody wants Microsoft approved distro. What should be avoided in order to prevet introducing Microsoft MONOculture in Linux, is Mono. And Microsoft also could sue users of Mono when they decide that migration away from Mono is to hard. So double trap.
Exactly. Spot on. Precisely.
Microsoft want everyone to have to pay them for software. They want both users and producers of software to pay, per copy, for any software at all, even software which Microsoft did not write and do not distribute themselves.
Microsoft want at least for everyone to pay per copy, and preferably to pay per client/user/machine per period of time (i.e. rent), and even better, pay per use.
That is also not true. Software patents hurt FOSS but they are not incompatible with it. See LAME, the FOSS MP3 encoder, it’s under LGPL but thrives despite patents.
Patents are a problem of the jurisdiction, not FOSS itself.
English is not my mother language but if I understand http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/press_release08_06_07.php correct, Google licensed patents from OIN (=licensee) but does not grand its own patents to OIN (=licensor).
Btw: Novell is a licensor to OIN.
An even better proof would be to publicly create lots of prior art without patenting anything. You can’t countersue patent trolls anyway because they don’t make any products.
Once again your comments make no sense. Novell only markets its Linux offerings directly towards enterprises and that branch is growing.
Random readers if the “Boycott Novell, cheer for Red Hat” propaganda hate blog are not enterprise officials.
(openSUSE is sponsored by Novell but not marketed by Novell. The commercial distributor of openSUSE is called open-SLX and is an independent company.)
Mono isn’t even part of the default openSUSE install (don’t know about SLES or SLED but considering that Novell sells a separate Mono kit, I guess it’s true there as well). It is part of Ubuntu’s default, hence Ubuntu does more to promote Mono than Novell.
You are not reading again, or you are trying to spin. I said incompatible with “paying royalties”. If you pay patent royalty, it is not free software anymore. LAME is only free software in countries where patent don’t work. In other places, it is a liability. That is why it doesn’t ship with most linux distros. Mono is in similar position, but some distros decided to ship it due to great amounts of astroturfing and shilling done by Team Apologista.
About OIN, you are wrong. That is not support for software patents. OIN is a defensive patent pool which is designed to protect Linux. Red Hat, IBM, and few other companies have thrown patents in it so they could be used for counter-suit, if someone sues OIN members over use of Linux. That is not prof that Google is supporting patents, it is a way people are trying to protect themselves from the patent craze. I don’t know what are you trying to prove with that.
Microsoft takes a cut of every SUSE support contract and that is reason to boycott it. SUSE was growing while Micorosft was selling coupons, now it is stagnating. As for “CIOs don’t care for MS deal”, maybe some don’t, but they care about quality. Since most devs and volunteers are steering clear of Novell, SUSE quality took a nosedive since MS deal. Nobody is reporting bugs, nobody is testing pre-releases, it is all up to Novell staff which is shrinking after multiple rounds of layoffs.
As I already said, (but you apparently just waived it away without reading) Mono should be boycotted because all the different reasons than SUSE or OpenSUSE. Read again, you might understand better.
I’m reading all the time and very well. You are the one who can’t differentiate between Free Speech and Free Beer.
[qhttp://www.openinventionnetwork.com/press_release08_06_07.php Google licensed patents from OIN (=licensee) [/q]
That is interesting. Since it is a licensee, AFAIK that means Google can now use OIN patents as countersuit claims.
Hmmmm.
http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/pat_owned.php
Are the rumors of a SUSE buy-out from Novell still floating around? I thought I’d read that in last weeks’ news; Novell in talks regarding selling SUSE/OpenSUSE to someone else.
Your boycott bit did make me giggle though. I’m just trying to imagine the hard-core “world is black or white” folks dropping CUPS (Apple), Samba (Novell) and anything else ever touched by corporate profit motives.
I don’t think forking (reimplementing) CUPS would be too hard, if anyone cared enough. If that’s all it takes to go “Apple-free” (the other one being not using webkit based browsers), it’s not a big hindrance.
Is Samba in Novell’s hands somehow? I didn’t know this.
I thought the Samba project was under Novell’s wing. If not, then maybe it was just the core developers also working for Novell. I remember Samba did pay MS a lump sum for access to documentation but the rest of the details escape me.
Samba founder, Jeremy Alison, left Novell in 2007, after trying few months to convince management to undo the deal with Microsoft.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061221081000710
He was followed by other members of Samba team in following months. No Samba developers work for Novell now.
(Compare that with De Icaza who absolutely loves MS deal and who is actively evangelizing Microsoft technologies and attacking RMS on GNOME mailing list.)
Samba don’t have anything to do with Novell today. It is GPLv3 licensed, community developed, and it got interoperability papers and specs from Microsoft forcibly – by a court order, under GPL compatible terms. Not some shaky promise like Mono. They don”pay” (as in annually), they did *one time* payment of $10 000.
Edited 2010-10-04 19:50 UTC
So Novell is just Suse and OpenSuse then.. cheers for the info
A one-time fee for access to interoperability information and technical assistance, even under a NDA, is perfectly reasonable.
What would not be reasonable is Microsoft trying to extract a per-user fee or per-period rent from Samba or Samba’s users for code that Samba wrote.
It’s not the code. It’s the invention represented in the code. If Microsoft or Apple or Oracle or any other litigant holds a patent that Google has infringed, they have to pay up. Sorry, you may not like that reality, but it is reality. Google has gotten a free ride up until now, but they’re going to get an education in intellectual property very quickly, now that they’re stepping on the toes of other players in the mobile market. What are they going to fight back with? Search patents? LOL. As if.
Remember Motorola is there own law firm.
So if they win against Microsoft they get to us it for advertising.
I prefer Unicrons to unicorns myself.
I’ll also go out on a limb and say that Android’s success against iOS on the smartphone line will not extend to other consumer devices, so iOS is in no danger of being overrun, unicorns/Unicrons or no.
But, whatever.
That’s kind of a dumb statement. As long as iOS is exclusively offered on apple devices there’s tons of room for competition and android is it today.
From Horatio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing for Microsoft:
“We have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard the billions of dollars we invest each year in bringing innovative software products and services to market.”
All I can is, if Microsoft invested billions of dollars into developing a battery monitor and email synchronization, then they have some really lame-ass engineers.
Edited 2010-10-01 22:13 UTC
No need to go all the way up to today … this is the same company who gave us Windows Me … lame-ass engineering is a Microsoft “trademark” … I wonder if lame-ass engenieering isn´t already a part of their patents porfolio …
patent # 157832 Method of hiring mentally challenged, constipated baboons to copy/steal/develop new products.
It’s also the same company that’s trying to go to the supreme court to save its own ass from patents:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/strange-bedfellows-…
Correction: save its own ass from *other peoples* patents.
Edited 2010-10-03 04:26 UTC
“We have a responsibility to our customers…”
Hahahahaha. This Microsoft dude is some comedian, and this is really sick joke. What customers? Nobody touches their mobile stuff with 10ft poole. And what customers get from patent litigation anyways?
That Redmond company is full of crazy wannabe-borg idiots who want to have frickin sharks with frickin laser beams attached to their frickin heads, so they can scare people into buying their inferior and lock-in infested crap.
MS advertised WGA as a way to product their customers from piracy. This is just more of the same language. Yes it’s stupid and frankly offensive.
Edited 2010-10-03 04:28 UTC
The problem is that the marketing spin is horribly affective among general consumers. People really believe that WGA is someone benefiting them without the least bit of a clue that the only people hindered be WGA are paying customers. The people WGA claims to hinder are the people who’ve already cracked it. Heck, it’s a selling point “Windows; now with 20% less hassle and zero trans-WGAs”
Apple, Oracle, and Microsoft are all ganging up on Google in the hopes of destroying Android.
This, being that Android is such a huge competitive threat against the following:
iOS/iPhone/iTouch/iPad … Apple’s cash cow
JME – Oracle’s asset, worth about a 100 million a year, and potentially much more in the right hands, in licensing (JME was the one area where Sun managed to make some money on Java).
Windows Phone 7 / Zune … an area Microsoft desperately needs to grow in.
Thus, I highly doubt Google is going to take all of this lying down. Android is waaaaay too important for their overall strategies, for them to let this continue.
I’m sure Google has tons of key search, web service, and data munging related patents, and could use them to counter punch these dog pilers, stifling iTunes, Oracle cloud products, and Bing.
Should be interesting.
Apple, Oracle, and Microsoft are all ganging up on Google in the hopes of destroying Android.
You know what, I see a pattern here and one must be completely ignorant not to see this.
Apple sues HTC (Android)
Microsoft strikes a patent deal with HTC (because of Android)
Oracle sues Google (Android)
Microsoft sues Motorola (Android)
Edited 2010-10-01 22:32 UTC
Get IBM in there and you got the old boys club together.
I hope Google comes in guns a’blazing. Block iOS/WP7 from ALL Google services. See how those dicks in Cupertino and Redmond like that. Have fun Binging, Apple fanboys. Let’s see how long it takes for Apple to come crawling back to Google’s services.
Edited 2010-10-01 23:53 UTC
IBM will not join in; they have invested too heavily in Linux, and making the open source community love them.
It would be similar to if SUN had tried before it was taken over; not going to happen.
Thom,
Google and Apple just resigned a deal to feature Google on iOS so that’s clearly not going to happen.
Also, if Google started blocking these devices that would probably justify MS blocking Google on the desktop which would only help Microsoft.
Google is not in a position to really do anything other than to spend a ton of cash to pay of Microsoft.
K
I am just thinking, as much as I wish Google to win (despite their privacy policy), what can Google counter sue for? May be they can counter sue MS/Yahoo if they violate some type of search/advertising patents but other than that I am not aware of anything else they can sue for. I am afraid Google is a sitting duck unless they can engage law suites indirectly through a third party.
Are you kidding?
Google:
owns most popular search engine of the world.
is the most popular email provider of the world.
owns Youtube, #1 video host of the web.
And you think there isnt a thing they can do to put pressure on microsoft and/or apple?
let me suggest one thing, treat apple like themselves, add a term to youtube’s license agreement which results in iOS applications stop working on youtube.
That will heart youtube a bit, but will heart apple’sproducts seriousely.
Google press Apple with money; Google pay Apple in order to be default search engine in iOS.
Action; Google blocks MS/Apple et all from search, email, mapping data and the rest of the Gservices.
Reaction; Google receives anti-competitive Captain Kirk sized bitchslap so fast that even the lawn eating goats head’s spin.
I’d really like to see the media show if Google did start blocking competitors from it’s services but it’d probably hurt Google much more than the blocked parties.
Google can’t afford to block its services from Apple. Search is Google’s bread and butter. They don’t make money from any other product/service.
Sigh, this has nothing to do with Andoid itself. Google has created Android so that it breaks many patents, they know that how else you think they could release Nexus One without having sued? Because they have deals with Apple and Microsoft to allow them to use those patents.
Reason why Apple or Microsoft aren’t suing Google over Android is that it’s not PRODUCT. Google doesn’t sell it as product nor distribute working images which would be products. When phone maker uses Android(the base) they basicly take something as recipe and turn it to product. However when they do that and sell the product they use someone elses patents and gain unfair advantage against those who pay for those patents.
Instead of seeing at as Microsoft trying to be greedy, it’s more that Motorola is greedy and tries to get unfair advantage against other phone makers like Samsung and HTC which aren’t sued here.
We need patent reform to stop some of these silly patents being lodged. You should be allowed to lodge or have a patent unless you are actually using it the tech either.
The patent laws have not kept up with the digital economy. Either get rid of them or fix them.
Even if software patents remained, at least amending them to focus on specific fixed processes rather then general concepts would help. Right now they are over-reaching generalizations used to stifle competition.
To be honest, I’ve yet to figure out why copyright is not adequate protection for a written work like software.
Because you can’t make as much money with it as with patents
Edited 2010-10-04 17:37 UTC
I find that Microsoft is always claiming that it is acting in the interests of its users or security or some other such nonsense whenever it wields its formidable patent portfolio against a competitor. How laughable. Microsoft is acting in the interests of its profits and in the interest of maintaining its monopoly over…well, everything relating to computers, mobile devices, and software; nothing more. Android and Linux will succeed against this bloated has-been and eventually, the U.S. will realize that its patent system is horribly, horribly broken and (hopefully) make significant changes to reign in this type of abuse. Until that time, I will happily continue boycotting Microsoft and Apple while supporting the F/OSS community to the best of my ability.
Whether the ITC agrees to ban the devices or not (and they rarely do), it’s a great tool for a media attack against your competitors. If the ITC takes a week to decide, then that’s a week when investors and stock market people are thinking that Motorola is a bad company to have money in. Here’s the info I’ve collected so far:
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Microsoft_v._Motorola_%282010,_USA~*~@…
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Phone_patent_litigation
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/United_States_International_Trade_Commissi…
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Motorola
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Microsoft
Google, does not hold the oldest search patents….
yahoo does.. via altavista and google, pays yahoo licensing fees.
guess, who is now buddys with yahoo…..
🙂
… who said that Microsoft have changed? Where are all those Mono zealots who tries to convince everyone that we’re living in la la land and that Microsoft is open source company? De Icaza, I am looking at you!
If anyone believes anything those creeps say, he should hang himself immediately. For stupidity.
What does this have to do with Mono? I’m still using Mono applications without issue. This patent suit has nothing to do with Mono or end users in any way. I guess you just couldn’t miss the opportunity to conflate two totally unrelated things in an attempt to validate your opinions.
Mono fanboys sure lambasted Java over Java-unrelated lawsuit against Dalvik.
This is very related with Mono, because Mono advocates try to paint Microsoft as friend of open source who wouldn’t think about suing. And they do that because that’s only way to slip .NOT in GNU/Linux. Now we have more examples that Microsft will sue whenever they have interest in suing, and that they are very happy to sue against free software.
Mono scumbags are all either Microsft shills, or plain stupid. De Icaza is trying to push Mono on everyone so his God, Microsoft can sue whoever they please. And he also said that Google should put in Andoid so that microsoft can have real chance of winning when it sues against Android.
PS:
As for your use of mono, nobody said it will burst in flames if Micosoft sue some company. Question is, do you support idea that everybody should pay money to Microsoft to do any software development? If you don’t, then get rid of Mono.
Edited 2010-10-03 04:56 UTC
Disparaging people because they see things differently than you doesn’t help your argument… it hurts it. At the very least it makes people less likely to consider any rational points you might make.
We serve our cause much better when we take the time to craft arguments in a more persuasive and less antagonistic way.
There are good reasons to be conservative when it comes to the adoption of Mono. Don’t let that message get lost in vitriol.
Cheers
I think Wikipedia put it best when they said “citation needed.”
Oh, you are now saying that nobody said such thing?
Google for just about any Mono thread on just about any forum, you will see a Mono crowd praising Microsoft for their “openess” and attacking anyone who say one bad thing for Mono. FFS, just open thread about Mono on any forum, and you will get jumped by bunch of Microsoft/Novell shills or fanboys, who will call you an extremist if you don’t praise mono and agree with them that is best thing since slice bread. If you go over few forums, you will find out that those are same people (same nicks) on every forum. It is not like people like Mono, just there is a devoted little group who are very skilled at astroturfing.
If that is not enough to you, what about Microsoft Alpha-shill Miguel De Icaza calling Google to switch from Java to Mono? OSNews reported on that, and if google listened to De Icaza, Microsoft would now have more things to sue over. Is that citation enough?
Well, it may be that Microsoft are trying send a message to Google via Motorola: either use our tech (for example: as embodied in OOXML, Mono/.NET and Moonlight/Silverlight) and pay us our dues (royalties) … or we will sue your customers (Motorola), for using your software not ours, and frighten them all away.
http://planet.gnu.org/gnutelephony/?p=10
Let us be very, very clear here … there is no Microsoft software on a Motorola phone.
Microsoft are sue Motorola for exactly that “offense”.
In a normal world, Microsoft aren’t even a part of this picture … Microsoft has no contract here, Motorola’s phones have nothing to do with Microsoft.
Edited 2010-10-03 10:57 UTC
Thanks for the link. I agree with that guy, that is what Microsoft is doing.
But I don’t think they will be satisfied with people just paying them royalties for Mono and OOXML. That is just a steeping stone. They want to “up-sell” OEMs to .NET and Vista Phone 7. Having Mono is just one more chance for Micorosft to collect money. The poster got it correct, it is form of terrorism and I think it should be illegal. â‚¥i₢¤$¤₣₮ have definitely decided to become patent troll. I think they are already.
So what. There was no Eolas code running in Microsoft products — and a court still awarded Eolas over $500M. There was no i4i code running in Microsoft Office. But a judge awarded i4i $200M. It’s not about the code. It’s about the ideas in the code.
That’s just the way patent infringement litigation works. Either, it infringes — or it doesn’t. And, if it does, Motorola (and Google) are going to pay.
Actually, one is NOT awarded a patent for an idea, but rather for an “invention”, or more precisely, a “method” of doing something (a means to achieve the desired affect).
Even more precisely, one gets a patent on one or more of the specific claims (regarding methods used to implement an invention) made within the patent application.
According to the Bilski decision, claims have to be implemented in a specific machine.
A concrete example helps: a pharmecutical company can obtain a patent on paracetemol headache tablets. They get a patent on the method of making a tablet, containing the active ingredient paracetemol, which provides relief for headaches via the ingestion of said tablet.
They do not get a patent on the idea of a headache tablet. The patent is far, far more specific than that … it probably involves the specific chemical formula for paracetemol.
Because they use different methods to relieve headahces, Aspirin tablets and Ibuprofen tablets do not violate the patent. Even a paracetemol tablet made via a different method may not be covered by the patent.
One does NOT get a patent on an “idea”. Ideas are not patentable, methods are. If you read a patent application, it will almost invariably say: “a method for” doing blah blah blah.
One does not get a patent on abstract methods, methods must be implemented in a specific machine.
Finally, mathematics and scientific theories (being abstract ideas) are not patentable. Since software is mathematics, software alone is not patentable.
So … no. If the functionality on Motorola’s phone is achieved via different methods, then even if is effectively the same functionlity as described in Microsoft’s patents it is not covered by said patents.
Given that Motorola’s phone uses different software source code, written in a different language, running under a different OS, where said OS has an entirely different heritage to any of Microsoft’s code, it is highly unlikely that any of the software on Motorola’s phone infringes in any way on any patentable method within Microsoft’s patents.
The problem is that it can be very, very expensive for Motorola to show that to a jury. It would even be wildly expensive just to get it to the point where a jury was asked to decide. It is very difficult to explain all this to a non-technical jury, and the burden of proof in such a case falls heavily on Motorola.
The system is wildly, outrageously biased in favour of the patent owner making the accusations of infringement.
In the vast majority of cases, the case is settled out of court by the accused paying the extortion money asked by the patent holder. It is far cheaper for the accused to do that rather than seek justice.
That is how screwed the American “lack of justice” system is.
Edited 2010-10-04 23:57 UTC
Backup:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention
An invention is derived from an idea. An invention is not the idea itself.
Rather, an invention is a “composition, device, or process” which implements an idea.
Patents are granted on new inventions. Ergo, patents involve protection rights for a new specific composition, device, or process which implements an idea (maybe, but not necessarily, a new idea).
Edited 2010-10-05 00:12 UTC
Go back and reread my statement: “It’s about the ideas IN THE CODE.”
And you aren’t answering my point. Where has De Icaza ever made a claim that Microsoft is an “open-source company”? You also seem to be mistaking “openness” for “open-source” which would be inaccurate. One could certainly argue that C# is open but that Microsoft is not an open-source company.
Edited 2010-10-03 21:52 UTC
Your had a point? I thought you were just quoting wikipedia. You sure didn’t ask any of that in your original comment.
I am not one mistaking openness with open source, Mono fans are doing that.
And yes, C# is open. Like a bear trap.
http://savecapitalism.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/bear-trap1.jpg
As for de Icaza, it is on his blog. I am not going to read all his garbage again so I could find and link it here. I have policy against linking trolls. I don’t want to give him traffic he don’t deserve.
C# is an ECMA standard, now if you are talking about Winforms or ASP.NET then that is another issue.
There is a trap in Mono but it was laid entirely by Miguel who pushed to clone proprietary parts of .net like Winforms. Don’t smear C# just because Miguel is naive.
Read this (it is deep link):
http://www.the-source.com/open-source-at-microsoft/open-source-at-m…
Read all to the point when writer adds
So please don’t insult people’s intelligence and claim that C# is “open”. It is heavily patented, and even if wasn’t (and it is), language alone gets you nowhere. All libraries, infrastructure, and everything that people think about when they say C#, is proprietary, patented, and off limits. So C# is a trap. Little subset is standardized, but Microsoft is very proficient with entryism, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they have people at ECMA that will do things they need to screw whoever they decide to screw. “Microsoft and “standard” just don’t go together, it is an oxymoron. FFS, they even screwed SI standards for mesures, MS centimeter is different than real one
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/189826
So saying C# is a “standard” is just marketing.
Microsoft “opened” C# but AFAIK only for non-commercial use. Microsoft specifically did NOT open other parts of the .NET platform (just as you say, the proprietary parts like Winforms).
But Microsoft don’t “push” C# … they push .NET.
Therefore, since it is effectively simply bait, C# thouroughly deserves all of the smearing directed at it, even if it is more accurately .NET and not just C# which is the problem.
Ok so microsoft says that using linux is not free.
They say the device manufacturers should pay them for protection from … Microsoft.
OK so
isn’t this extortion? Patent extortion? pay us for protection or we sue you? WTF? USPTO are you watching this ?
As predicted right here on OSNews 6 years ago:
http://www.osnews.com/story/8261/Opinion_Microsoft_s_new_business_p…
Ever since MS settled with Apple after Apple’s broad patent lawsuit in the 1990s, MS and Apple have a cross-licensing deal.
It’s no secret plot that Apple leaves Windows Phone out of the picture and doesn’t sue MS. Apple has no legal base to sue MS (just as MS has no legal base to sue Apple) as long as the contract between both companies is still valid and so far we have no indication that either company plans to cancel the contract.
And it’s also not as if Apple and MS launched their suits at the same time. Apple sued in March, now we have October.
If there is a coincidence in time, it’s between MS and Oracle.
Microsoft is AGAINST software patents, right? Right?
Or are they only against other people having them?
Neither MS nor Motorola is against software patents.
Vote yes on prop. 69: Microsoft and Apple are now synonyms of, respectively, of child molester and filthy, disease riddled slut.
Usage is as follows:
“Beware of that guy, kid. Some say he’s a microsoft!”;
“Dude, that girl looks like an apple!”.
Note that one can also use the verb “to microsoft” (to molest a child) and “to apple” (to have sex with a filthy diseased riddled slut):
“Haven’t you heard? Tom was caught microsofting!!”;
“Tom: Shit Jim! I’m positive for syphilis!”
“Jim: Guess you’ve been appled, hum?”
“Tom: I Guess so…
“.
Please help spread the bad word because if we make them the laughing stock of the internet, maybe they’ll stop being pricks.
Perhaps we can even damage their income via the GIMP effect.
Let’s make this happen.
That would put a whole new spin on the phrase “apple of my eye…”
Apple sues HTC — because they are one of the largest handset makers? Ostensibly Microsoft doesn’t because HTC still makes phones with tinyWindows.
Apple leaves Moto alone, I guess because they are not the threat that HTC is to iPhone — so Microsoft gets their panties in a wad because Moto doesn’t have a Droid 2 with tinyWindows and sues them? Or maybe Apple and Microsoft are in collusion on all this…
Listen up, Apple: I’ll be damned if I am going to let you dictate my choice of carrier to get an iPhone. And you, Microsoft — Windows is annoying enough on PCs; it made me want to crush my phone in my bare hands on numerous occasions. Maybe tinyWindows 7 is better, but it’s too late.
Android gave me relative freedom as well as a good OS on a good phone. Apple and MS, why don’t both of you weenies put more effort into engineering and customer satisfaction and less into legal posturing for a change? Damn.
Maybe Apple and Motorola have I cross-licensing deal I’m not aware of. Back in the pre-Intel Mac days, Motorola provided a large chunk of Apple’s CPU requirements. And since Apple was also part of the consortium responsible for the PowerPC architecture, both companies might have signed a cross-licensing deal that’s still in effect and now covers smart phones as a byproduct.
It is probably much simpler than that. Motorola, unlike HTC, has been on the cell phone business since forever (day one?) and perhaps, together with Nokia, it probably has the biggest bunch of mobile telephony-related patents ever which makes them a force to be reckoned with.
That makes such lawsuit appear even more puzzling because, if I were Motorola, I’d counter sue – as in, it must be impossible for MS to *NOT* have crossed *some* underlying patent when developing their phone stuff – to either kill MS’ phone business entirely
or force them into a friendly settlement.
That would also have the nice side effect that it would tell Apple to stay put or to risk have its biggest cash cow pulled from under their feet at a whim.
That would send a nice message to those litigant assholes over Redmond and Cupertino.
Lets wait until we see how many non-geek users go back for a second or third Android device. And lets see what Google do to the Android platform to circumvent the rampant pirating of apps and how the user base reacts to that. When Android devices are in their third or fourth generation we might start to get a worthwhile picture of the landscape…
Knowing the usual contents of your posts, I suppose you’re suggesting that Android will end up choosing the same technical solutions as iOS for piracy prevention.
However, even then, Android would have achieved some interesting results :
-Proving that open-source has its place at the consumer level (day of the linux desktop, anyone ?)
-Making the touchscreen smartphone market available to everyone, not just people who are ready to spend €700 (or even more if they buy the device for €200 with a special data plan).
-Making the full internet available on mobile devices through Flash compatibility, showing that Flash *can* run on phones and tablets (after all, it was initially designed for that purpose). Apple made the first step by forcing Adobe to go back to work on non-windows platform, and now Android is making the next step towards making Flash actually work on mobile platforms.
-Showing that an application store does not need a vendor dictatorship to work
Next-generation mobile OSs like QNX, MeeGo, and Symbian^4 will then be able to take it from there, fix the issues of the Android ecosystem (e.g. by introducing a better security model and slaining piracy), and maybe will in the end finally introduce a new killer feature, like compatibility of mobile applications across all platforms, that thing we’ve had on dumbphones for ages
Edited 2010-10-02 08:36 UTC
…because 569% growth per quarter is not a worthwhile picture of the landscape?!?
It is unfortunate however what I have noticed is that as a consumer I’ll never use any mobile phone for more than 4 years. And I’ll probably will always buy whatever is hot in the market at that time. Today its a Android after 4 years it could be iOS xxx or Windows 9 or Symbian 4 or MeeGo on mobile.
And I definitely see that all big companies are are cornering Google. Cause they have also realized Cloud is where future is and google has vision for it. They have some sort of fear and want to finish google earliest.
Just a quick search for mafia quotes from movies. Quick game: associate MS, AAPL and Google/Motorola/HTC to one of these lines
“I know it was you, Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart.”
“Just when I thought that I was out they pull me back in.”
“Made it, Ma! Top of the world”
“I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse”
Oh yes, one more: “[…] may have moved slow, but it was only because […] didn’t have to move for anybody.”
Edited 2010-10-02 14:38 UTC
If I were Motorola, and Motorola wasn’t a company – you know, one that’s supposed to do funny stuff, like earning profits -, I’d settle with MS, paying them away, then announce that from today no Motorola phones will ship with MS software.
Motorola phones ship with MS software today?
is would the US federal government abolish patents? Software patents directly distorts the free market causing less competition.
Since the dems/reps aren’t much into change, likely won’t happen.
As much as people her and on other forums want it, there is just far too much vested interest in keeping the patent was alive.
Why?
Who profits from these spats?
Lawyers.
Who makes up the majority of Politicians (Sarah Palin excepted..)
Lawyers.
Getting rid of the software patent gravy train ill seriously hurt many lawyers in the back pocket.
ego, lots of campaign funds heading towards those politicians who say they don’t want mess up the status quo.
It’s standard business practice in the computer/telecomm biz — what you can’t win in the open market, you try to win in court.
“with Microsoft being in the business for this long, you can barely take a piss without violating one of Redmond’s patents.”
That’s funny. I thought that UNIX was the first big kid on the block back then, but what do I know? I don’t even run major operating systems.
Motorola is using Google’s Android, which is based on Linux, which in turn is a Unix work-alike.
Dalvik is based on Java, which in turn is Sun’s technology.
There is no Microsoft tech involved at all.
They may not have a lot of their own patents but they do have a lot of resources.
They should have announced a massive investment planned for postgre along with links to Oracle alternatives on their home page.
Oracle launched a torpedo and they just stared at it. Google made it clear that they won’t fire back.