Microsoft Wins US Import Ban On Motorola's Android Devices 200
jbrodkin writes "The U.S. International Trade Commission today ordered an import ban on Motorola Mobility Android products, agreeing with Microsoft that the devices infringe a Microsoft patent on 'generating meeting requests' from a mobile device. The import ban stems from a December ruling that the Motorola Atrix, Droid, and Xoom (among 18 total devices) infringed the patent, which Microsoft says is related to Exchange ActiveSync technology. Today, the ITC said in a 'final determination of violation' (PDF) that 'the appropriate form of relief in this investigation is a limited exclusion order prohibiting the unlicensed entry for consumption of mobile devices, associated software and components thereof covered by ... United States Patent No. 6,370,566 and that are manufactured abroad by or on behalf of, or imported by or on behalf of, Motorola.' Motorola (which is being acquired by Google) was the last major Android device maker not to pay off Microsoft in a patent licensing deal. Microsoft has already responded to the decision, saying it hopes Motorola will now reconsider."
Generating meeting requests? (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you f'ing kidding me? The inmates really are running the asylum.
Re:Generating meeting requests? (Score:5, Insightful)
Please read the whole summary carefully:
from a mobile device
These 4 words let you rehash any old shit into a patent no matter how obvious.
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What if the androids can Generate Meeting Request From Their ASSES! The same place Microsoft is pulling these patent ideas from not to mention the idiots that make these feeble rulings.
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This is brilliant, really. The old "(whatever)... on a computer!" junk patent space was getting a little played out, but now we can patent "(whatever)... on a mobile phone!" so life is good again! At least for patent trolls.
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Just like Apple and "using a touchscreen." Microsoft's next course will be "using a gesture-tracking interface." As a bonus though, once Microsoft plays that one out it'll be hard for a future company to use the "using a holographic interface" line.
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All devices are mobile unless they are constructed in place. Even then you probably could move them.
Well, yes. Here's the classification:
- "highly mobile" devices
- portable devices
- transportable devices.
Can't wait the time one will only be able to generate meeting requests on-the-go using their Cray supercomputer in the back of their truck.
Re:Generating meeting requests? (Score:5, Funny)
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Posting a bond for a royalty rate of 33 cents per device in the US for the next 60 days is a far cry from the original ~$8 per device Microsoft originally wanted. Me thinks Motorola won't have any problem paying that amount to get around the ban (even if, worst case scenario, the pending ban in Germany for Windows 7 and Xbox itself never goes into effect).
If any inmates are running the asylum, it's the Slashdot editors and the ArsTechnica editors that are using their headlines as cheap click-bait. It's like
Glad they found something important to ban (Score:5, Insightful)
The march towards an US of A free of smart phones (Score:5, Interesting)
That's certainly a good reason to ban a product. That's all I use my phone for!
Use it while you still can. Next in line, Google and Apple dusting off some of their patents and banning each others phones, including the MS one.
Getting around the bans will be possible: except the smart phones won't be that smart anymore, each one will need to eliminate the "smartness" covered by the patents of the others.
Re:The march towards an US of A free of smart phon (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you know, just stop selling smart phones in the US and concentrate on the rest of the world instead, where software patents aren't an issue...
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It doesn't work like that, Google got a ban in place against Microsoft products in Germany but a US court ordered Motorola not to enforce the German ban even though frankly it had fuck all to do with the US court as it as a German issue. Here's hoping a German court orders Microsoft not to enforce the Motorola ban and see how American sfeel about German courts enforcing their power on US soil, doubt it'll happen though.
Basically whatever Microsoft wants Microsoft gets. People think Ballmer has achieved noth
Why the google hate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Last time I looked(a few seconds ago), Motorola was being sued, not Google. Google was not even thinking about buying Motorola when those devices were made. So how is this Google hate even relevant?
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So how is this Google hate even relevant?
I think I've gone back and re-read everything here about four times. What Google hate? Mentioning Google's trying to buy Motorola's Google hate?
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This is called a Straw Man Fallacy.
Note OP said "when those devices were made". Note how your reply says "before the lawsuit".
Do you see how you altered firesyde's argument so that you could refute it?
Re:Why the google hate? (Score:5, Informative)
Google hasn't purchased Motorola yet, much less before the lawsuit.
Approval from various government agencies is required before the purchase occurs (which is why it hasn't yet, as the Chinese authorities which have to approve it haven't.) So your statement that the purchase had occurred but hadn't yet been approved by the required government agencies is self-contradictory.
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Wouldn't it be cool if there was a place I could go to look things up on the internet? You could type things into a text box and it would look through the internet and give me a ranked list of answers. If only there was someone who did that.... Perhaps they might even make money from selling advertisements based on the search terms. Yeah...if that existed, it would be so cool....
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There is, it's duckduckgo.com. They do sell ads, but you are free to disable them. Search rankings do not suffer from any manipulation, marketing driven or otherwise.
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Search rankings do not suffer from any manipulation, marketing driven or otherwise.
That's one of the funniest things I've read all day.
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They should also sue Google (Score:2)
After all, I can use my iPhone's web browser to visit Google Calendar and send meeting requests from there.
And the solution is... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're currently using Exchange, perhaps now is the time to think about using a cloud service for email.
Re:And the solution is... (Score:4, Insightful)
As for the patent suit, it's a ridiculous patent, and f*ck them... it's obvious.
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I don't know why anyone makes a fuss about this stuff. The majority of the large tech companies all feed the patent trolls, themselves, frequently enough that they get what they deserve.
If a company stood it's ground and began an advertising campaign centered around exposing dumb patents and stopping their own dumb patent litigation, I could respect the situation then.
Motorola should just do what has been done a dozen times now. Dig out some worthless patents of their own that they think they can stick in
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PIMs typically comprise applications which enable the user of the mobile device to better manage scheduling and communications, and other such tasks. Some commonly available PIMs include scheduling and calendar programs, task lists, address books, and electronic mail (e-mail) programs. Some commonly commercially available PIMs are sold under the brand names Microsoft Schedule+ and Microsoft Outlook and are commercially available from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. For purposes of this discussion, PIMs shall also include separate electronic mail applications, such as that available under the brand name Microsoft Exchange.
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The patent is not limited to Exchange - it covers any implementation of meeting requests on a mobile device. Exchange is only given as an example of the broader class of "personal information managers (PIMs)" that the patent applies to:
PIMs typically comprise applications which enable the user of the mobile device to better manage scheduling and communications, and other such tasks. Some commonly available PIMs include scheduling and calendar programs, task lists, address books, and electronic mail (e-mail) programs. Some commonly commercially available PIMs are sold under the brand names Microsoft Schedule+ and Microsoft Outlook and are commercially available from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. For purposes of this discussion, PIMs shall also include separate electronic mail applications, such as that available under the brand name Microsoft Exchange.
Given that, wouldn't Blackberry (1999) or the Palm Pilot (1996) be prior art?
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The patent is not limited to Exchange - it covers any implementation of meeting requests on a mobile device. Exchange is only given as an example of the broader class of "personal information managers (PIMs)" that the patent applies to:
PIMs typically comprise applications which enable the user of the mobile device to better manage scheduling and communications, and other such tasks. Some commonly available PIMs include scheduling and calendar programs, task lists, address books, and electronic mail (e-mail) programs. Some commonly commercially available PIMs are sold under the brand names Microsoft Schedule+ and Microsoft Outlook and are commercially available from Microsoft Corporation of Redmond, Wash. For purposes of this discussion, PIMs shall also include separate electronic mail applications, such as that available under the brand name Microsoft Exchange.
Given that, wouldn't Blackberry (1999) or the Palm Pilot (1996) be prior art?
Filed: April 10, 1998
Blackberry, no.
I'm not familiar enough with the early generations of Palm's devices to say whether they had a network calendaring app pre-'98.
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The patent is not limited to networked calendaring. The state of the art in 1998 when the patent application was submitted was a non-networked mobile device that synced via a USB or serial cable to a PC. The independent claims in this patent are claims 1, 9 and 17. Other claims are just a refinement of those claims. All three of these claims mention a synchronizing component and
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Can you or anyone explain to me how it happened that, with patents on machines, it is the method and process that is claimed, but with software it is the functionality itself?
My understanding is that two people can both build, say, a flashlight if the operating principle is different (e.g. shaken capacitor drives a LED vs. solar-charged battery powers an incandescent). But software patents seem to cover the very concept of meeting requests or search suggestions, etc.
Am I missing something?
The patent (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the patent in question:
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-ELAAAAEBAJ&dq=6,370,566 [google.com]
The present invention includes a mobile device which provides the user with the ability to schedule a meeting request from the mobile device itself. The mobile device creates an object representative of the meeting request and assigns the object a global identification number which uniquely identifies the object to other devices which encounter the object. In addition, the mobile device in accordance with one aspect of the present invention provides a property in the object which is indicative of whether the meeting request has already been transmitted. In this way, other devices which encounter the meeting request are capable of identifying it as a unique meeting request, and of determining whether the meeting request has already been transmitted, in order to alleviate the problem of duplicate meeting request transmissions.
Is that really patentable? Assigning a unique ID to a meeting request to alleviate duplicate requests? How can that not be obvious to someone "skilled in the art"?
Is there any other solution that's more obvious? "Hey Joe, I keep getting duplicate meeting requests from your Palm Pilot. Oh noooooos! Hey, I know, I'll send each meeting request in a different color, then if you get two purple ones you'll know it's a dupe".
Re:The patent (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's the patent in question:
http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=L-ELAAAAEBAJ&dq=6,370,566 [google.com]
The present invention includes a mobile device which provides the user with the ability to schedule a meeting request from the mobile device itself. The mobile device creates an object representative of the meeting request and assigns the object a global identification number which uniquely identifies the object to other devices which encounter the object. In addition, the mobile device in accordance with one aspect of the present invention provides a property in the object which is indicative of whether the meeting request has already been transmitted. In this way, other devices which encounter the meeting request are capable of identifying it as a unique meeting request, and of determining whether the meeting request has already been transmitted, in order to alleviate the problem of duplicate meeting request transmissions.
Is that really patentable? Assigning a unique ID to a meeting request to alleviate duplicate requests? How can that not be obvious to someone "skilled in the art"?
Is there any other solution that's more obvious? "Hey Joe, I keep getting duplicate meeting requests from your Palm Pilot. Oh noooooos! Hey, I know, I'll send each meeting request in a different color, then if you get two purple ones you'll know it's a dupe".
Better yet, it is so vague that probably every laptop and table is also in violation of it, well every laptop and tablet not running Windows (ie Apple). My old palm pilot is also probably in violation, too.
ethernet and predecessors (Score:2)
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As I understand it, it was Microsoft that pushed for ActiveSync support on the iPhone, in order to keep themselves relevant against RIM's threat at the time. Don't take my word for it, though.
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If that were true, they probably gave Apple the license for ActiveSync on the cheap; in which case Apple would really be laughing.
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The claims (Score:5, Insightful)
FTFA: claims 1, 2, 5, or 6 of the United States Patent No. 6,370,566
FTFP:
Claim 1: A mobile device.
Claim 2: Using a GUID.
Claim 5: And an address book.
Claim 6: Which talks to a remote server.
...
We're fucking doomed.
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We're fucking doomed.
Oh, but, no the system can't be irreparibly broken. That would be uncomfortable and put a damper on my chronological ethnocentrism.
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There are 23 claims in patent 6,370,566. Only 4 of those have been infringed by Motorola, and their device has been injunctified. So no, a device does not have to infringe on all the claims, legally only one is sufficient
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Didn't PalmOS do this in the PalmPilot and Treo long before Microsoft thought mobile devices were interesting?
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Actually, no. Microsoft has been tinkering with mobile devices for a long time. As funny as it seems, they were actually one of the pioneers in this field, together with Psion and Apple. Windows CE predates even the first Palm Pilot.
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I don't quite understand any of it. Doesn't ActiveSync create a layer by which any software (regardless of the kind of device it may be running on) can insert objects into Exchange? Wouldn't it be Exchange itself which would be taking care of any duplication issues?
Or to put this in really simple terms, is ActiveSync not just an API that allows http(s) access to Exchange functionality? If that's the case, then the patent itself doesn't even actually describe what Motorola (and every other Android phone and
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The reality here is nothing to do with meetings or calenders. It is all about being able to remotely update a database. No matter what you name those columns and rows, it is all about updating a remote database. The US Patents office is claiming that every database type can be patented not once but twice, once for fixed location updating and once for remote location updating. Even when everything in between has already been patented, the phones, the computers, the network, the relational database software.
How about a telex machine (Score:2)
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If you compare the telex with claim 1, the telex machine doesn't have an application, not used for storing data on a remote storage, and certainly doesn't have a synchronization mechanism. Finally, telex machines doesn't seem to qualify as a mobile device.
If something doesn't EXACTLY match the description of AT LEAST one claim, it isn't an infringement. Actually, that's why many patents are quite easy to bypass.
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You are missing the point. It seems that many people on slashdot simply don't understand how patents work.
The abstract and the description of the patent doesn't mean that the patent owner "owns" whatever described on it. The description is there for the readers so that they can understand how the whole stuff works. It can contain whatever description you want.
The idea Microsoft "owns" is described as "claims", which essentially describes a mobile device which has a UI, can synchronize to a remote system,
That seems corrupt (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That seems corrupt (Score:5, Interesting)
I would have thought a ruling by a judge would be needed to render something banned from import. So the power to regulate allows government agencies the ability to make profound and legally binding decisions without need for court systems or due process? I was not aware the ITC were experts on IP.
They're not, and you're right ... they just ban stuff because a lawyer makes a convincing argument to a bureaucrat who hasn't the slightest idea of what the subject matter is, or how it relates to the product class in question. This will still go to court, and ultimately I suspect the ban will be lifted. The ITC is where everyone goes to get fast action without any court time.
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I don't agree with this instance of a patent, but someone who is violating a worthy patent shouldn't be allowed to keep violating it while the suit takes place.
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... but someone who is violating a worthy patent shouldn't be allowed to keep violating it while the suit takes place.
Why? What happened to the presumption of innocence? If it's determined that it infringes, assign damages.
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And once it's proven that the claim is false, who will pay for the harm done?
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It's a civil matter, rather than a criminal one. You can only presume inanity.
Is that really a word?
Jeebus, your legal system [sic] is fscked up, especially your tort law. So, no presumption of innocence in civil cases? You are way fsckin' doomed. Your time has come. Repent sinners, the Rapture awaits your arrival! Doom to those without legal representation, and go fsck yourselves too, we don't much care about you proles. Ptui!
And I was hoping for such great things from you guys. You started out so well.
Fine. "Nuke 'em from orbit, ..."
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And if the patent is ultimately ruled invalid, who compensates the business that lost sales and marketshare due to their product not being on sale?
Such a system is far too ripe for abuse, you will get a bunch of tiny shill companies setting up to file entirely frivolous suits and then tie them up for as long as possible for the sole purpose of harming a competitor... When the suit finally gets thrown out, the shill company has no money left and so cannot compensate their victim.
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Re:That seems corrupt (Score:5, Interesting)
Its not.
"Government agencies" have very little in terms of inherent power. What they do have is the power conferred on them by Congress acting under its Article I powers, which often include the ability to make decisions of first instance in certain controversies. Due process is required in such proceedings by the 5th Amendment.
These decisions are, generally, subject to review, sometimes by special courts set up for review of agency decisions (Article I courts), and -- either initially or subsequently -- by the regular (Article III) courts.
Since their role is narrower than that of, say, the regular federal trial courts, and IP is specifically central to it, there's far more reason to expect that the ITC members are IP experts than that the federal judges and juries that would hear cases in Article III courts would be.
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A government that has the power to ban your competitor's products also has the power to ban your products. Perhaps, at some point, someone will get a patent injunction against some essential features of Windows or Office and then refuse to license the patent...
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and paten
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'generating meeting requests' (Score:3)
Wow, remove it and continue to ship.
-AI
disgusting (Score:5, Interesting)
Roll that around in your brain for a second.
I really wonder why anyone would have one bit of respect for any intellectual property laws when they are being perverted in this way.
And they wonder why there is hostility toward our current economic system. Maybe it's because the people at the top of that system have completely broken the social contract.
Between this story and the notion that Facebook, a corporation that produces nothing, employs almost nobody, and whose users are not their customers is now worth >$100billion, and the fact that the young founder of Facebook is has greater net worth than the bottom 1/5th (!) of the entire US population, I think a picture of an economic system in its death throes starts to take shape. I can't see how it can last much longer, nor can I think of a reason why it should.
Did you sign the contract? (Score:2)
Maybe it's because the people at the top of that system have completely broken the social contract.
Sorry, but 'social contract' is a fairy tale that's told so you can pretend like you're not supposed to be getting screwed, but instead they're they're just breaking the rules. Bad boys, they need to be brought back in line.
The reality is that you getting screwed is the rule of this socio-economic system. Big governments and their corporate creations locked into a tight positive feedback loop. Hold on tight
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Are you implying, as has been falsely implied many times before, that a small government results in a lower probability of a corrupt, monopolistic economy arising? I would have thought seemingly intelligent people would have moved past that. Governments might aid corporations due to corruption, but when you give it all over to an unregulated "free" market, nobody needs corruption to screw over the people; they just
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Roll that around in your brain for a second.
I really wonder why anyone would have one bit of respect for any intellectual property laws when they are being perverted in this way.
Because people who have respect for IP laws realize that someone's description of the patent may not actually be what the patent claims? Consider, Toyota has a patent (several, actually) on the Prius hybrid engine. But if I just said "a Toyota patent on 'a vehicle engine'," people who didn't realize that there's more to it would think it was insane. Why, there's more than a century of prior art! Disgusting, huh?
There are issues with the patent system, but basing your evidence for those issues on someone's
Can anyone reading this story (Score:5, Insightful)
not think that patents are utterly useless and absurd?
The "invention" in question is laughable beyond belief.
The defendent and plaintiff are mutlinational corporations. Not a little guy that needs protecting.
How do the lawyers whose lifework is this nonsense make sense of their lives? At the end of the day, in your old age, what is the value of your life's work? Did you make anything? Did you help anyone? Or did you shuffle words around a disgusting nonsensical argument foisted on some other lawyers for the sake of absurd privations? What a completely and utterly useless and despicable existence.
Why do we as a society tolerate this useless sideshow? Oh, because of all the money involved, right.
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I believe you. However, here you are preaching to the choir. You may want to champion your beliefs at, say, IP Watchdog [ipwatchdog.com].
I learned there that you should apply for software patents before any code has been written, and that thinking of the idea is the hard part. Coders just do what they're told -- that stuff is simple. It takes a really smart ass^H^H^H guy to come up with ideas like this patent.
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We patent lawyers write, attack, and defend patents for the same reason that any other schmo gets up in the morning and goes into work: someone pays us to. Maybe that type of existence doesn't align with your worldview, but it's nevertheless a perfectly logical explanation.
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Why do we as a society tolerate this useless sideshow? Oh, because of all the money involved, right.
What's money, anyway?
Can you eat it? It will nurse you when sick? Protect you from a bullet?
What will happens to these guys when the money they think they have became worhless, as no one will have more to trade?
Money it's worthless. It must exchange hands in order to have some value. Any kind of action that encumbers this dynamics should be dealt as a crime against the People.
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does that justify highway robbery? kidnapping? extortion? murder?
if something is wrong to do, it is wrong to do. that it might put food on the table is the only justification needed? ever hear of morality? civilization? fuck you you parasite
Patent portent (Score:2)
These things should not be patentable per se (which isn't to say that particularly clever implementations couldn't be patented):
1. Doing something on a wireless, portable, or handheld computer that is already done on a desktop (and not covered by a patent there.)
Joins my old favorite:
2. Anything that exists in the real world, a simulation is not per se patentable. Again, unless the real world thing is patented, and subject to the "clever implementation" issue.
Litigate, not innovate. (Score:2)
This is a sign of weakness and corruption when they can't just compete, but cheat with crooked bureaucrats and filthy politicians. First it was Apple being whiny punks, now M$ follows suit. (pardon the pun) Personally for their pathetic actions, I am boycotting both companies the best that I can. I will go back to smoke signals and an abacus before giving these bastards one worn out penny.
the world roots for NK and I? (Score:2)
WooHoo Cheap Xooms for the 7 billion outside USA (Score:2)
Patent office should be held responsible (Score:5, Insightful)
So they replace a few lines of code (Score:2)
or disable the function or start paying Microsoft.
They'll be not importing for a couple of days while they implement their workaround, which has already been worked out in anticipation of the ruling.
ridiculous (Score:2)
Fuck man - this is as ridiculous a patent as the round corners one from Apple.
I need a Razr Maxx (Score:2)
I travel between China and the USA, and when I am in the USA I want 4G support, so buying a non-4G version of the Razr Maxx is out of the question (what is sold in Asia is all non-4G as far as I have found). I already know the Verizon version is supported on China Unicom's 3G network, so using it in China isn't a problem.
I wonder what the chance is this ban, even temporary, would allow me to pick up a 4G Razr Maxx for less than the fairly crazy US$649/no contract price it goes for in the USA... Surely some
Die Microsoft Die (The Microsoft, The) (Score:2)
Microsoft should just go away and quit trying to collect money for things they had no part at all in creating. To the fools that claim that Motorola or Google deserve it, It's not punishing Motorola at all. It's picking money out of your pockets for every Moto product that you buy to enrich Bill Gates even further.
If the feature cannot be removed or worked around (and I'm betting that it can), then ship in the phones with no operating system installed -- hence no infringement at the border where this is all
Ignorance is ... profitable! (Score:2)
Re:Justice was fairly served (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, if Microsoft were held to that particular standard they would have been out of business a long time ago.
Re:Justice was fairly served (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, if Microsoft were held to that particular standard they would have been out of business a long time ago.
Microsoft has hardly been an innovator. I wonder who they bought the patent from.
Re:Justice was fairly served (Score:5, Informative)
have you even heard of Microsoft Research?
Yes.
Here's a list of their output. http://www.quora.com/Microsoft-Research/What-products-have-come-out-of-Microsoft-Research [quora.com]
Perhaps you'd like to select a few highlights of genuine innovation for us to discuss here?
Are you 'fer it or agin it? (Score:2)
Code metrics sounds kinda neat, but I bet it ends up boiling down to IBM style 'pay by the line' management if it gets used anywhere...
Re:Justice was fairly served (Score:4, Interesting)
That's not entirely a fair statement. Most companies are founded by people with knowledge or skills specific to the companies core product so generally speaking the first outside person they hire is going to be someone who has skills they don't have, a lot of times that's going to be someone in admin as opposed to a lawyer, but I'd be seriously surprised to find many software companies whose first employee was a developer.
Re:Justice was fairly served (Score:5, Informative)
It is time to step up and show Google the door. If you cannot do business honestly, don't do it at all.
I'm not sure if you are trying to be sarcastic or not. I mean, remember, the other party to this suit is Microsoft.
And oh by the way Google doesn't own Motorola yet, and did not own Motorola when the devices in question were designed. But don't let a little thing like facts get in the way of your shilling or trolling or whatever it is that you're doing.
Re:Justice was fairly served (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, because we all know Microsoft invented the smartphone... wait, what?
Because we can all see how important Microsoft's smartphone inventions have been to the public, by the success of their phones. </sarcasm>
Re:Justice was fairly served (Score:4, Insightful)
Motorola did probably as much work on mobile tech in the early days as Nokia/Ericsson.
When it comes to that really difficult work Microsoft brings nothing to the table.
(Barnes and Noble didn't pay either and got bought off to drop the case).
It is not justice really. MS didn't pay hardly anything at all for most of its early stuff. (To Dec etc).
They shouldn't be able to pull this type of crap. (I don't hate MS anymore due to the fact they have a few quite products now and Gates is trying to do something good.) - (I quite like WP7 / Xbox 360 / Windows 7) - (Prior to Windows 7 I used either Solaris / Freebsd or Linux exclusively from 1999 onwards but it less easy to work with the abominations that are the modern DE's - When e17 is finally released I will probably go back to a *NIX - I am hoping it is before Windows 8 - Due to the work of Samsung it is getting very close to release - (Might as well use the best thing I can when the end of the world happens (Duke Nukem Forever is released) so this is the final thing).
The patents that are held by the Original pioneers - Nokia / Ericsson / Motorola should in a civilised society be worth far more than any junk software patents.
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No he said DNF was released, which was one of the first signs of the end of the world. The final sign was the release of Enlightenment DR17, which has been in development since 2000 and will probably still be in development until long after I am dead. It's one of those projects where the developers are striving for an impossible degree of perfection and so never actually finish. It's not been quite as long as GNU Hurd, but E16 was a damned fantastic window manager(a bit out of date now) whereas GNU Hurd is
Re:Justice was fairly served (Score:5, Interesting)
First comment praising Microsoft - a properly worded, properly paragraphed, properly punctuated, comment, with a link with description - all of this taking up a 100 words not including punctuation - Posted by kdps (2642743) on Friday May 18, @05:38PM .
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This is so on topic. Whoever modded this offtopic has to be astrosurfing..
It is very insightful, that the grandparent is the first posting , yet it is so detailed...
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I know. I got modded off-topic for mentioning that this is kdps first and only post. I didn't even look at the timestamps.
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So, we're saying kdps is a shill account being operated by the /. 'editors' to provoke and promote 'discussion' and a 'debate'; that we're being manipulated and incited in order to increase pageviews and comments?
Re:Justice was fairly served (Score:4, Insightful)
Google has a long history of trying to weasel out of agreements and payments just because they're 'Google'. In turn, Microsoft spends billions an year towards their R&D (Microsoft Research [microsoft.com]). They also work with the pioneer in the industry, Nokia, which has developed pretty much all the technology we base mobile phones today on. They deserve to be paid.
Not only do I see victory for justice, but a long term crackdown on Google's illicit business practices. It is time to step up and show Google the door. If you cannot do business honestly, don't do it at all.
Justifiably, you were marked for the troll that you are. Microsoft is a convicted monopolist (US vs Microsoft), a stealer of IP and code (Stacker, i4i), a saboteur of companies (Wordperfect/Novell) and a financial backer to SCO. They're also anti-open standards as evidenced by the people they tried to pay off to try and ratify their failed document format standard. As for their R&D - all I see from their labs are useless kinect experiments that have no practical or commercial value.
Microsoft scores own goal in Moto patent battle (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's look at what Microsoft won and lost here.
Eight of the nine patents in suit are rendered useless. As soon as the last one is worked around, nine of nine. Everybody will work now to avoid these litigious patents. Microsoft's licensing strategy is to not reveal the patents at all because they can be worked around.
They don't get the $15 per device license fees, in perpetuity, they wanted.
Moto has to pay $0.33 per device, and only on the few devices found to infringe, and might actually get that money back if they bother to try. But regardless they save $14.67 per device - and that's just starting now. They don't pay any back money for prior devices.
Moto and Google have probably already worked around this patent and the cure is in testing. Once it's applied the net cost to Moto goes back to zero until the next time.
By successfully suing Moto for using Microsoft's patented Exchange API, they've recommitted to a course of prevention of interopability in a core Office product some had claimed was behind them. Way to go! We get to bring this up every time someone tries to say things have changed, or you should use some Microsoft technology and it will be OK (Mono, C#, and so on).
They don't get to cross-license Moto patents, ever. Moto has a LOT of patents.
Moto gets to be bitter and sue them back over every single thing they can, like H.264 patents, wireless patents and so on. Microsoft has to drop the DVD codecs from Windows 8, for example.
Everybody else who's paying Microsoft for Android gets to see that it is more economical to fight than to pay. Moto gets a $15 per device cost advantage on their Android devices, the better to compete with.
In return Microsoft may have earned the princely sum of One MILLION dollars, less lawyer expenses. (Based on 3 million devices imported before the issue is sorted out.)
Way to go guys! That's how you win in the digital age. Keep doing stuff like this and you'll earn your just reward.
Re: (Score:2)
By successfully suing Moto for using Microsoft's patented Exchange API, they've recommitted to a course of prevention of interopability in a core Office product some had claimed was behind them.
Interesting. Didn't the EU already fine Microsoft $billions over that very thing?
Re: (Score:2)
This cut 'n' paste astroturfer thinks everyone on Slashdot is as gullible as a WP7 user. And yes, I do mean all 3 of them. This post is his *first* one ever, and was made the instant the original story broke.
Re: (Score:2)
The only reason why Google acquired Moronola was to get ahold of the patents. Their products are a useless piece of shit, so nothing of value has been lost really. Hard to choose between Microsoft and Moronola as both companies seem to specialize in mediocre products.
I disagree Mr. Coward. I've had 4 Motorola phones going back to the revolutionary in its time StarTac and loved everyone one of them. I presently have an original Droid and no desire to upgrade it to anything newer yet because it is great at doing everything I ask of it.