EU Warns Nokia Not To Become a Patent Troll 78
Barence writes "The vice president of the European Commission's Competition unit has warned Nokia not to become a 'patent troll'. Nokia is in the process of selling its devices business to Microsoft, giving rise to fears that the remaining part of Nokia will make more aggressive use of its patents portfolio. Vice president Joaquin Almunia said that the commission had dismissed the possibility that 'Nokia would be tempted to behave like a patent troll' when it cleared the way for Microsoft to acquire Nokia's devices division – but warned that 'if Nokia were to take illegal advantage of its patents in the future, we will open an antitrust case.' 'I sincerely hope we will not have to,' said Almunia."
Re:Oh dear (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft in general don't take too kindly to jokes and fun any more in general.
I miss the fun Microsoft, the cool developer-friendly Microsoft that were only dickish in a business sense.
Now they are just plain old dicks.
Expect Microsoft Research to get scaled back horribly in the coming years as well, they already killed some developer-related services as it is.
MSR, MSDN and all the dev-related groups were great while they lasted.
Likewise with Google and how they just killed theirs pretty much. RIP Google Labs.
Re:Typical american slasdotters (Score:4, Interesting)
Nokia is as far from a patent troll as you can get. Unfortunately, many just assume that because they sue everyone and their mother they're trolling. They sue everyone and their mother because they invented many crucial parts of the thing everyone and their mother owns.
Besides, since when is Nokia a "good ol hard workin [American] corporation"?
Kingmaker, self (Score:3, Interesting)
This behavior by government officials is, or should be, illegal. Patent trolls are bad, but officials threatening to withhold licensing or "review" it for legal behaviors that have nothing to do with the issue in question is a gross, kingly abuse of power.
If patent troll behavior of the remnant is illegal, you deal with that directly as a criminal issue.