Nokia Feeds a Patent Troll 93
New submitter glebovitz writes "In case anyone missed the other Nokia news: on the same day they announced the sale of Qt to Digia, they also sold 500 patents to Vringo. Vringo, a video ring tone company, recently merged with patent portfolio company Innovate/Protect which includes Donald Stout, the founder of patent holding company NTP, on its board. Forbes refers to NTP as 'a patent troll which milked Research In Motion for $612.5 million in a patent infringement settlement reached in 2006.' As Eric Savitz writes in the article, 'Vringo decided to basically turn itself into a patent troll.'"
A simple rule (Score:5, Interesting)
What would be the effect of restricting a patent holder from initiating litigation to infringements made prior to the acquisition of the patent? This would leave many issues inherent in patents unsolved. But, because it's so simple, would be an easy barrier to put in place, and hopefully lower the benefit/cost of patent trolling.
This would have required Nokia to initiate litigation vs. Research in Motion prior to selling the the patent to Vringo. This would certainly affect their image. If they were not concerned about this, they might have pursued a case v. RIM themselves, or at least outsourced it.
Vringo could immediately demand that Research in Motion cease any ongoing infringement. But R.I.M could then simply cease infringement, and Vringo would get no return on their patent acquisition. Vringo could also demand liscensing fees for ongoing RIM use of the patented tech... R.I.M could decline, or contest the patent, making the prospect of buying patents for the purpose of Trolling less alluring.
This was done at Microsoft's behest (Score:5, Interesting)
We all know that Nokia CEO Stephen Elop is a sockpuppet of Steve Ballmer (why the Nokia shareholders put up with this is beyond me, but it probably reflects the lack of actual control over corporate governance by the nominal owners). Now Elop is taking yet more actions that don't really help Nokia, but are calculated to hurt Google (and probably Apple as well) as much as possible. The reason is obvious: Microsoft wants these Nokia patents in the hands of patent trolls to cause trouble.
Nokia is ripped off like nobody before got ripped (Score:4, Interesting)
Was there any bidding process? I assume not. Just some very shady deal in the interest of Microsoft only (FEDs should check if there are contracts saying Vringo cannot sue Microsoft, that would kind of prove that Elop still only works for Microsoft).
I think the Nokia shareholders are getting ripped off by CEO Elop and the board, I hope someone sues them soon, before it is too late. Nokia is ripped off like nobody before got ripped off. The following text shows how major decisions by Elop (ex Microsoft) are only in the interest of Microsoft and not at all in the interest of Nokia.
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/07/the-sun-tzu-of-nokisoftian-microkia-mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-whose-the-baddest-of-them-all-waterloo.html [blogs.com]
And all those saying Nokia was already dead when Elop came, you are shills or blind, read it too. E.g. start reading the first âoeREASONsâ in the link. They were still twice their competitors when Elop came, alone in China they could have as many customers as Apple has worldwide by a exclusive deal (bound to MeeGo). Distance to Apple was growing at that time. All systematically destroyed in the following months. I don't say they were super fine, but they were still a monster, the elephant in the room. No outside force could move it nearly as fast as Elop has. Now they are an empty shell.
If you have time, read this. It's very long but good (19 reasons why Elop should be fired, you can skip the intro to REASON 1 if you are lazy).
No way the CEO AND the board do not see the logic behind most of these 19 reasons. This is a scam, there must be a huge reward for most of them on some secret channel. Money? Girls? Power?
Anonymous please give us their Email and transform Elops and Balmer's phones into bugs that we can hear what they are talking in private. Jail them all.