Visual Depiction of Who Is Suing Who in Mobile 175
Although the graphic itself won't win an award for design,
Norman submitted a story about who's suing who in the mobile universe. From Apple to Qualcomm and pretty much everyone in between, it's a pretty impressive mess.
The Lawyers win (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'm sure there will be plenty of nonsense when you graduate circa 2015.
By that point you'll probably have TV broadcasters suing Google, Apple, etc over interference caused by their TV Band/whitespace devices. You'll have these same companies suing to gain control of channels 26 and up for cellphones. Meanwhile Apple will be suing some clone maker who is selling an ePhone - basically a clone of the iPhone. Also that new open source project that mimics OS X 10.10 (Whine). RIAA/MPAA will be suing people bi
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You don't even need to go to law school. There are a whole slew of systems used by lawyers that IT guys can support. Relativity, Clearwell and iConect are a couple that you might want to look into.
competition (Score:2)
Take that! That'll teach you to compete with me.
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It's not anti-competitive... the competition just moved into the courts.
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Maybe the courts should start charging 0.1 million per lawsuit to these corporations, in order to offset the added expense of operations (and also pay down the debt).
Of course fees for individuals would remain the same, so the rest of us can afford it.
Size? (Score:2)
It would be far more informative if the "balloon" for each company was sized based on gross sales, or some-such. That would at least differentiate between a large company with serveral lawsuits, and a tiny company with an inordinate number.
Re:Size? (Score:5, Insightful)
And even better if they sorted it out so that the arrows didn't overlap..
Why on earth does the Oracle-Google arrow overlap with the Nokia-Toshiba one? Specifically added confusion, that's why.
Re:Size? (Score:5, Insightful)
As a matter of fact, I did just that. Theirs is a hopeless mess of spaghetti.
http://ompldr.org/vNXFndg/lawsuitmap.gif [ompldr.org]
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Well done sir! Clearly TFA's authors don't have an eye for design..
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Re:Size? (Score:4, Funny)
*blushes*
MS Word
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If you're wondering, there is a planar embedding for this graph (ie they could have avoided all crossing). GO MS PAINT! [jumpmanzero.com]
But yeah, not sure whether they're dumb, or just wanted it to look more imposing.
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And even better if they sorted it out so that the arrows didn't overlap..
Assuming I didn't miss an arrow or misread the direction of an arrow, here's a planar version [tzs.net], courtesy of OmniGraffle's automatic layout and a little but of manual tweaking to remove a couple overlaps it still had.
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Even better, not why just have it as a comma-delimited text file and have it done with?
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I re-did it with graphviz. neato will produce a graph with no crossings.
The first sign that their graph was piss-poor was the unnecessary crossing of Oracle->Google and Nokia->Toshiba.
digraph G {
graph [center ranksep=equally rankdir=LR remincross=true overlap=false splines=true]
center="";
ratio=auto;
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A planar embedding may not exist.
That doesn't mean crossings shouldn't be minimized even if they can't be avoided.
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Well, considering that Qualcomm is underlined for misspelling in the graph, I don't the author was particularly concerned with spending time on polish.
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A general graph may not be planar, but this one surely is.
Re:Size? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Good idea. And also, say, blue lines for partnerships. Maybe another color for patent licenses.
... who is suing whom ... (Score:3, Funny)
Just saying
Abolish patents already. (Score:3, Insightful)
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Actually, that is not the only way of looking at this. IMO, more than everything, the diagram shows that the RAND process common in cellular standards does not work.
While the MPEG-LA may be a common hate figure on Slashdot looking at this diagram makes me think that there may be some method in their madness. Combining standards with 3rd party control over the patent pool seems to create a much more sane environment compared to RAND.
All this money and time (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's like the heat death of the universe. After all the black holes go away all you'll have left are photons.
Our society is going down the same road. After everything is sued away all you'll have left is lawyers.
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Eventually we'll reach a point where a company only produces one product, then spends the rest of its life defending itself from lawsuits. And this will be good for the consumers of course.
Technology marches on.
Rent-seeking (Score:2)
Rent-seeking: It's the new innovation!
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That would be interesting if "us" were direct beneficiary of this parallel market. But all I can think off, is that all this is a "broken window fallacy" type scenario with lawyer as "glaziers".
Well, maybe we should just say - screw the protection for little inventor and artist and get rid of patents and copyright. That is not good solution, and probably bad in
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Because people need to be able to put food on the table, buy clothes, etc. If they do their hard work inventing something (even an improvement of a previous invention), they need to be able to profit off of that, and not have everyone just steal the idea on which they spent time/money working.
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Ideas are cheap, implementation is everything. Besides, it's a lot easier to profit from an idea when you don't have a dozen large corporations suing the crap out of you, as per TFA.
Business Success (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft.. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Seriously that makes no sense. Why would I sue a company I am emulating? You sue when someone steals something FROM you.. *looks at google*
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Cross licensing and proactive lawyers - both aligned to a strategy. I don't think it's any coincidence that they're touting low risk by indemnifying manufacturers against patent litigation.
Re:Microsoft.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft isn't delivering a product, so they can't be sued.
Actually, Microsoft is almost offering to be sued (Score:3, Interesting)
By indemnifying WP7 manufacturers against patent infringement suits, MS is basically assuming any legal threats itself - on behalf of its manufacturers.
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Most companies are smart enough to let sleeping dogs lie.
Doing battle with Microsoft (or any other big name company) means a lot of money spent on legal fees, whether you're on the serving or receiving end of the lawsuit. If you do sue them, you had better hope that you can fund your lawyers through the duration of the case and that the expected payout is worth the expense.
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you mean like Nokia, Google, or Apple?
Re:Microsoft.. (Score:4, Informative)
The end result is that most companies *do* cross license with Microsoft without the muss and fuss of a legal battle, because by all rights Microsoft does have some patents of value that you want.
A non-comprehensive list of companies that Microsoft has cross-licensing deal with:
Alpine, Amazon, Apple, Autodesk, Centrify, Denso, Epson, Fuji, Funai, HP, JVC, Kenwood, Lexmark, LG, Lotus, Nikon, Olympus, Onkyo, Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung, TomTom, Toshiba, and Xerox.
While not directly a suit (Score:2)
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Well, that graph has a line about MS suing HTC, but, if I remember correctly, there was no lawsuit - just an expensive (for HTC) licensing agreement.
Hey Microsoft (Score:2)
If you can't innovate, litigate.. right?
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Microsoft does, on an annual basis:
http://www.microsoft.com/investor/reports/ar09/10k_fr_dis.html [microsoft.com]
If you read through a bit, you will see that they currently incur legal expenses of about $500 million a year and spend about $9 billion a year on R&D.
(Of course, those legal expenses include settlements...)
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Does that reveal a knee-jerk anti-microsoft bias, or an inability to comment on the actual subject matter...I guess that's not really an either-or question. never mind.
Re:Hey Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
And as far as everyone else goes, these kinds of things have been going on for years but it is Microsoft who continues to do the most damage to competition. The others tend to figure out how to work thing out without initially destroying each other. Microsoft's business methods and practices are always based on protectionism as opposed to competition and their market position makes them the largest threat in the ring. They've lost 10s of billions on the Windows CE based productline yet it still exists. As with Internet Explorer they effectively pay vendors to ship their products until the competition has lost enough income they are easy pickings. That makes them the elephant in the room.
As for it being knee-jerk well if it were a demolition derby, when a competitor shows up in a armored tank, who but the blind isn't going to point that out?
LoB
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If you innovate, then you get to litigate TWICE. Once to defend, and again to collect.
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If you can't innovate, litigate.. right?
Nice try, i guess none of those companies do any innovation then.
where is Palm(hp)? Where is RIm? (Score:2)
have they fallen so far they aren't worth or can't afford lawyers?
NTP (Score:2)
And then you have NTP who is suing everybody.
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I was thinking the same thing. NTP are suing everybody under the sun apart from Nokia (who licensed from them) and RIM (who they've already sued).
And they also aren't suing Samsung for some reason. (yet)
The Era of Stupid Computing (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you imagine if what is going on now in the mobile space had been happening as personal computing took off during the 80s? We'd have gotten just short of nowhere, what with all the patent suits crippling things and walled garden lock down forcing people to find exploits so they can regain basic levels of control.
I can't help that this piss poor, anti-user behavior in the mobile market is going to ripple up into the general computing space in the next few years and generally make life hell for anyone who shows an interest in computers beyond Facebook, e-mail and the latest console game.
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I had to question your assumption that patent suits were less common in the 80s, so I did some googling. Turns out the 80s were pretty bad too:
http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~bhhall/papers/HallZiedonis07_PatentLitigation_AEA.pdf [berkeley.edu]
The pretty and relevant charts are on page 24 (Figures 3 and 4)
The excerpt from the paper that describes those charts (page 10-11):
If You Stare at the Diagram... (Score:5, Funny)
If you stare at that diagram long enough, you can see a whole bunch of lawyers swimming in piles of cash ala Scrooge McDuck. (If you're having trouble, it helps if you cross your eyes a little bit and back away slowly.)
Money grubbing Fins. (Score:2)
Gold (Score:2)
Better title: (Score:2)
"Artist rendering of actual patent thicket"
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Even better. "Who is suing whom". Because grammar matters.
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Nokia most litigeous!!! (Score:2)
Nokia is suing 5 companies and is being sued by 2.
Kodak is suing 5 companies and is being sued by none.
Microsoft is suing 2 companies and is being sued by none.
Apple is suing 2 companies and is being sued by 3.
Motorola is suing nobody and is being sued by three companies.
Sharp is suing nobody and is being sued by 3 companies.
LG and HTC are being sued 2 times apiece.
So, is Nokia the worst offender as it watches its profits tank in response to fierce competition?
Is Kodak, the king of failed business models ov
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Nokia is suing 5 companies
Actually more like 8: Toshiba, Qualcom, Apple, Motorola, Samsung, Sharp, Hitachi and LG
How the mighty have fallen
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God bless America (Score:2)
the land of the fee.
crooks vs. crooks (Score:2)
Short Story (Score:2)
Nokia and Kodak(?!?!) are basically suing everybody while Motorola and Sharp(?!?! again) are taking it in all holes.
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The caption of the graph is somewhat misleading as half of Nokia's lawsuits are suing companies for LCD price-fixing, not patent disputes.
Cold War is Ending (Score:2)
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You have favorite companies? Dude, you are so twisted.
In spreadsheet form... (Score:2)
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Best rendering so far!
Others focused in removing the crossing edges, which is an improvement, but this arrangement makes it easy to see who is suing and who is being sued.
Thank you!
This is how it'll always be. (Score:2)
Whenever a new technology or standard is proposed, there will inevitably always be overlapping patents that someone else owns. This is why big companies like to hold patents like poker cards. Nobody knows exactly what/how many/how effective the cards the other players hold, which is why most of the time nobody plays the litigation game. It's like saying "I'll hold on to my King because I'm afraid that guy has an Ace" unless that other guy already played a Queen against you in another game and then... well i
"suing each other kills innovation" (Score:2)
LoB
Won't just won't win an award. (Score:2)
That graphic is deliberately fucked up, with edges crossing where there's no need for them to do so.
What it shows when you decode it is that Nokia and Kodak are the most litigious, while the most frequent targets are Apple (no surpised), Sharp and Motorola.
9 of the bubbles are suing nobody, 5 are not being sued, and 3 are suing and being sued.
Nokia is involved in 10 cases, suing 8 companies and being countersued by 2 of them. I guess that's what you get for being a longtime pioneer and suddenly having your
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NitPicker, is that you?
Wow, look at Nokia go! (Score:2)
Nokia, LG and Samsung? (Score:2)
wait, aren't Nokia, LG and Samsung all on the Symbian board? Why the hell are they suing each other?
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Nokia is suing LG, Samsung, Hitachi, Toshiba, Sharp (and others on this graph) over the fact that they were involved in LCD price-fixing. It has nothing to do with patents.
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others NOT on this graph
Looks like NOKIA is the king of suing (Score:2)
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I won't defend the lawsuits against Apple, and Qualcomm, as I think they are crap, but the graph does seriously misrepresent the situation against Nokia.
Nokia is suing LG, Samsung, Hitachi, Toshiba, Sharp (and others not on this graph) over the fact that they were involved in LCD price-fixing. Government probes have found those companies guilty of doing so, and it is perfectly legitimate for Nokia to seek damages as a result of those.
I have no idea what the lawsuit against Motorola is. The closest thing I c
Jeux sans frontieres (Score:2)
Hans plays with Lotte, Lotte plays with Jane
Jane plays with Willi, Willi is happy again
Suki plays with Leo, Sacha plays with Britt
Adolf builts a bonfire, Enrico plays with it
(you get the idea...)
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Add to Dictionary... (Score:2)
I assume the name "Qualcomm" in the diagram has a dotted red underline because MS PowerPoint thinks it's mis-spelt?
Ah, this is the Grauniad we're talking about. Ignore me.
Does that diagram look familiar? (Score:3, Informative)
Needlessly complicated graph (Score:2)
More interesting (Score:2)
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Phone_patent_litigation (Score:2)
I've been making a list of the better articles and the most important lawsuits:
http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Phone_patent_litigation [swpat.org]
Graph Deliberately Bad. (Score:2)
There are, at a glance, at least four places where arrows cross, but shouldn't have to if the circles were moved. The worst case is the Oracle-to-Google arrow that has no reason to cross Nokia-to-Toshiba.
Move HTC above ELAN and Microsoft to the upper left corner.
Swap Sharp and Samsung.
Hell, just put the thing through dotty and nothing really has to cross.
I admit its is a legal pile-o-crap, but the dishonest way the graphical designer "tangled" it is either willful inflationary manipulation of opinion, or it
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In this case, a leafless tree would not survive the winter.
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i do not think that image is correct. nokia settled with qualcomm long ago.
This is correct. The big-deal-settlement and agreement [mobiletechnews.com] occured in July of 2008, and now the companies are working together on getting Snapdragon-enabled Nokia smartphones [intomobile.com] out the door in 2010.
I would know... I'm a Qualcomm employee.
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Whom do you say does not care anymore?
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