Jury Finds Google Guilty of Standards-Essential Patents Abuse Against MS 278
recoiledsnake writes "A federal jury in Seattle ordered Google to pay Microsoft $14.5 million in damages for breach of contract for failing to license at reasonable terms standard essential patents covering wireless and video technology used in the Xbox game console. Motorola had demanded Microsoft pay annual royalties of up to $4 billion for use of patents that are part of the H.264 video and 802.11 wireless standards, which are baked into Windows and the Xbox video game console. Microsoft said it was willing to pay royalties but not at the 2.25 percent of the product price that Motorola sought. We previously covered Motorola's exorbitant demands."
where is groklaw when we need it... (Score:4, Insightful)
with some real reporting
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Yawn (Score:2)
In other words, one giant evil corporation misused a broken system to extort money from another giant evil corporation. USA! USA!
Re:Yawn (Score:5, Insightful)
And we all lose.
Microsoft makes money off Android, for what I suspect is patents they've never disclosed. Google was trying to make money from Microsoft.
In the end, we all pay more, and the market is locked up by large incumbents who won't let anybody else play in the sandbox.
If the intent of the patent system was to 'foster innovation', we're not seeing that actually happen.
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"Patents they've never disclosed" is acurate. They go to companies using Android and say - "Linux uses our patents, pay us or else.", but they never disclose which patents Linux infringes on - they just take the money for a no-sue promise.
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Hey... We got this bunch of patents here... Pay us a fee for using them or else we will find some obscure patent to sue you over!
Doesn't Android pay MS royalties? (Score:2)
I thought MS was making a killing off of Android sales because of their licensing deals. It would be pretty simple for MS to just say, "I have altered the deal, pray I don't alter it any further."
Microsoft is one to talk! (Score:2, Informative)
- Alcatel-Lucent, which won US$1.52 billion in a lawsuit which alleged that Microsoft had infringed its patents on playback of audio files. This ruling was overturned in a higher court.
- Apple Inc. (known as Apple Computer, Inc. at the time), which accused Microsoft in the late 1980s of copying the "look and feel" of the graphical user interface of Apple's operating systems. The courts ruled in
FRAND (Score:2)
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Rules are very simple, you disclose the IP you hold in the area, agree to RAND if you participate in creating the standards.
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Licensing your patents under FRAND terms has more to do with what your innovation covers, in this case something that becomes adopted as a standard. These allow the fair use of the standard by competitors and drive the adoption of the standards and hence a monopoly. In this case it was about H.264 and 802.11 standards that that Microsoft was using that were patented by Motorola. What's not mentioned in this case is what other technology players are paying Motorola for use of the same patents. There's an
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Of course, you do realize that by admitting that you refuse to read opposing sides, that you are in fact, biased and uninformed, while the person you referred to actually isn't, unless you can prove that is the only site he reads, and then only if you can prove that article is in fact biased. All of which you have failed to do.
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Please, if you haven't followed the previous patent stories here, just google florian mueller. That guy has already admitted being on the payroll of both Oracle and Microsoft. He was debunked several times by Groklaw - here is one of them - http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120419070127103 [groklaw.net]. His "articles" have as much value as microsoft PR.
Reading (and worst, quoting) his drivel isn't reading "opposing sides", as you state. It is reading and giving support to what is basically paid PR from Microsof
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The moral of the story is to never license your patents as FRAND. Or, you know, fix the patent system.
A few years ago, a group working on the next html standards got a message from Apple, with Apple saying that they owned a patent that they believed would be infringed by the standard. There was a huge uproar against Apple back then for daring to own this patent.
Four things could have happened reasonably: 1. The planned standard gets changed. 2. The feature gets changed not to infringe the patent. 3. Apple is convinced by the working group that their patent isn't infringed. 4. Apple is convinced by the wo
Perhaps there should be a bit of summary. (Score:5, Informative)
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And it is worth noting that this was Motorola, not Google. This lawsuit was in full swing when Google bought Motorola Mobility, so Google really just ends up paying the bill, even though they weren't involved initially. The article here is misleading, the CNET article that it links to is not.
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While factually correct, considering how soon after the lawsuit happened that that Google made their purchase intentions, you can be certain that at the point the talks of a buyout were already happening. If you think Google didn't have a large influence on Motorola at that point you are kidding yourself.
Re: Perhaps there should be a bit of summary. (Score:2)
Not sure of the European situation but in the UK if you attempted to sue without some level of negotiation first your case would be thrown out as vexatious.
Conversely if you sue someone on the basis they have ignored multiple reasonable proposals out of court the court will favour you heavily.
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Not sure of the European situation but in the UK if you attempted to sue without some level of negotiation first your case would be thrown out as vexatious.
On the other hand, in Europe Samsung has been threatened with major fines if they didn't stop trying to get money for FRAND patents.
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On the other hand, in Europe Samsung has been threatened with major fines if they didn't stop trying to get money for FRAND patents.
Which is absolutely the correct response by the European courts. Samsung was playing dirty pool with their FRAND patents.
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(IIRC at this point Motorola countersued in Germany and won a temporary injunction on sales, that was overruled by an US judge. Apparently the US justice system overrules the european courts, but that's nothing new, I guess.)
It's not that the US court overrules the European courts, but rather that the order of suits means that the first one gets resolved first. If I sue you for breach of contract in Massachusetts, you can't run to California and quickly file suit against me for the same transaction (well, you can, but it will be immediately dismissed and/or transferred to the Massachusetts trial). That sort of forum-shopping by a defendant simply isn't allowed, in the interest of having trials come to actual conclusions.
So, in
pot, kettle (Score:5, Insightful)
in the mean time microsoft has no issue charging a similar percentage to android manufacturers
http://bgr.com/2013/05/01/microsofts-android-licensing-agreements-earnings/ [bgr.com]
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Uh, nobody has any idea what MSFT charges android mfgrs. Everything in that article is just a guess.
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And the difference is that the Motorola patents are part of a standard, and part of being included in that standard is that they agree to license under FAIR and REASONABLE terms. The amount they asked for was not fair, nor reasonable even by **Motorola's own admission**.
On the other hand, the patents involved between MS and android are not part of any standard. Microsoft did not agree to license them under FRAND terms. Android makers can make phones that adhere to all the standards they do now, but they
Misleading or false. (Score:4, Insightful)
Motorola requested royalties up to $4 billion, sure.
But "demanded" does not reflect that this was their initial offer.
Standard practice for licensing is
1-owner offers to license for $x
2-potential licensee offers to pay $y
3-owner lowers price
4-potential licensee raises offer
5-haggle over what is covered and what it's worth
The impression given is that this was after step 5.
It actually was after step 1; Microsoft sued before they made a counter-offer.
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Got any proof of that? Several people in these comments have claimed that MS never made a counter offer, so please back that up - reading the court documents gives a whole different impression on the negotiations in that regard...
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You have no idea what business transactions were made between MS and Motorola leading up to this case.
I will agree these companies are embroiled in a patent war and so are not playing fairly or favourable with each other, but to call something misleading or false and then have no fucking idea what actually went on is the problem with Slashdot today. Are you a patent lawyer, have you even set up a licensing agreement? Setting them up is usually a little more complicated than negotiating the price of used c
Missing Groklaw (Score:5, Insightful)
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No they aren't. As of Aug 20th 2013 they no longer are covering anything.
Read the front page of Groklaw. That's an old story you linked to. Nothing to do with the current story that the slashdot summary is linking to.
Unfortunately, now you only have the MS paid shrills covering the story. Groklaw was my goto place for stuff like this. It's truly a travesty that it's not going to keep going on.
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Yes, if only Groklaw still existed and was covering this.
They do and they are
No. They did and they were. Unfortunately groklaw is not updated anymore. Maybe PJ changes her mind, I would hope so.
On the other hand, I think that some groupthink had developed on groklaw where somehow the merits of patents very much depended on who was owning them. There were the good people who only used patents to defend themselves against evil people, and there were the evil people who were evil to use patents to fight back against the good people.
Microsoft did settle at 2.25% (Score:2)
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Yes, even the court thought so.
They really were exorbitant for a Standards Essential Patent
Re:Nice summary (Score:5, Insightful)
Can I ask about the FAT patents that are part of a standard (SD Card)? Why Microsoft is able to force OEMs into big cross licensing agreements for dumb patents like that?
Re:Nice summary (Score:4, Insightful)
Because they have not committed to a FRAND agreement obviously.
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That is irrelevant, we are talking about "Standards-Essential Patents Abuse" and Microsoft is a member of the SD Association
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The FAT patents are an essential standard since all devices use it.
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The point is Microsoft did not submit the patent to a standards organization for inclusion in an established industry standard with an agreement to offer the patent under FRAND terms.
Morotola did.
Just because everyone uses a patent does not make it a standards essential patent. Standards essential is an actual term - it means that an entire industry has agreed that "this" is going to be the industry standard and to have your patents be a part of "this" you must agree to license them under FRAND terms. If yo
Re:Nice summary (Score:4, Informative)
And, the argument being made by Microsoft and Apple is that patents on rounded corner or bouncing when you slide for a page, or any number of other non-SEP patents should cost more than the patents for the standard and that when a patent is contributed to a standard under FRAND terms that holder loses there ability to enforce that patent via injunction when others choose not to even negotiate a royalty rate. The end result is no patents being contributed to standards, and ending the standard process entirely because the standards can't avoid patents.
Basically, Microsoft and Apple are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs because without standards the whole ecosystem on which their non-essential patents gain their value goes away.
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The vFAT patents in question aren't an essential standard since there are many devices that don't use it. They are an enhancement on the standard that allows long filenames.
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The FAT patents are an essential standard since all devices use it.
You're not a lawyer. Neither am I, but I'm at least savvy enough to recognize the difference between phrases with specific legal meaning and phrases that merely sound good. "Standards-Essential Patent" has a specific legal meaning, and it doesn't really matter whether you think similar phrases sound just as important. They're not.
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So what you are saying is that you are a weasel and a sleaze.
Microsoft doesn't have to submit it's FAT related patents for "special treatment" because they have already been a dominant force in the industry perhaps for LONGER THAN YOU HAVE BEEN ALIVE.
Microsoft doesn't have to "abuse FRAND" because it can abuse it's well established (and confirmed by the courts) monopoly position.
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If it's a patent then it is a given monopoly to the owner of that patent to do what they want to. They can sit on it, not use it and prevent others from using it. How should there be such a thing as a Standards Essential Patent? That's just another example of how the patent system is broken in many ways.
I have precisely the opposite reaction to yours. First, yes, nothing good can come from agreed vital standards with a barrier to use due to patents. All that emphasizes to me is that ALL PATENTS are EVIL, COUNTER PRODUCTIVE, and ANTI PROGRESS. They are an idea conceived to prevent moneybags from usurping all the profits from new ideas, that has ended up perpetuating exactly the problem it was intended to ameliorate. The patent idea is only broken in one single way: that it is implemented in law at all.
The o
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There is nothing particularly "grown up" about passively accepting that a situation is fucked up.
Nor is there anything particularly "adult" about ignoring the vast bulk of the evidence in order to try and fixate on a vanishingly small set of corner cases.
Policies need to be judged by their results in aggregate. This is especially true for patents because this stuff doesn't represent any actual natural rights or any actual property. This is supposed to be about promoting progress.
The few good ones aren't goo
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The way that grown-up, adult engineers and standards-setting bodies pragmatically deal with that fact is to impose a FRAND clause for any patented technology that is included in a technical standard
This can be a little more complicated - they can't impose FRAND terms on patents, so what they do is if the company refuses to accept FRAND licensing they don't put it in the standard. FRAND terms tend to be widespread enough to balance out the lower fees.
Re:Nice summary (Score:4, Insightful)
He wasn't commenting on FRAND or anything else you mentioned. His statement was that patents are in practice the opposite of what they are in theory (and as originally prescribed). Therefore they no longer serve the purpose intended and should simply go away.
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By force of contract signed by the owner of the patent. You know the patent owner has a monopoly over the patent which includes the right to sign an agreement to license it under FRAND terms.
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Nope, another fail in understanding patents.
Consider the USB "standard". Someone invented that and instead of being a bitch and sitting on it they decided to partner with many companies to implement the technology on many products. Those companies willingly paid the licensing or royalty structure set in place to use the USB standard, largely because the fee structure was not ridiculous or anticompetitive in nature. Once everyone started using USB it BECAME a standard because if you came out with your own
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Once everyone started using USB it BECAME a standard because if you came out with your own proprietary data port then largely that would fail, except for bitches like Apple that created their own proprietary device ports, but they still hook into a USB port anyways.
Nope. Firewire doesn't hook into a USB port. USB was never fast enough to support the kind of sustained throughput that FireWire was capable of. There are some ethernet dongles that plug into USB, but that's hardly proprietary. For that matter, FireWire isn't proprietary either -- it's an open standard with a small royalty attached, and Apple is hardly the only company holding patents on the standard.
Bitches.
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He started out talking about FireWire, then shifted to Thunderbolt (and is apparently unaware that Thunderbolt is an Intel product, not Apple).
And you're apparently unaware that when FireWire was introduced, the royalty Apple demanded on chips implementing it was vastly higher than normal, which is why it was exceedingly rare for many years after its introduction. Apple demanded whole dollars per chip, which was outrageous, then and now. Motorola was proposing sticking Microsoft with the same kind of roya
Re:Nice summary (Score:5, Informative)
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Actually, 2.25% was the opening request - the same opening request they made to Nokia, Sony, and a bunch of other companies. MS ran to the courts to complain rather than negotiate.
Not sure how it's abusive to make an initial offer that's higher than you expect to get. Now, had Motorola/Google refused to negotiate that 2.25%, it might be abusive - but that's not what happened.
It might not be illegal, but it's a ridiculous amount for the patent at issue and the height of arrogance to ask for such a large amount.
And I would like to point out that it's not illegal for Microsoft to take their complaint to the courts, either. Since the courts seemed to have sided with Microsoft here, I guess we can conclude that Microsoft made the right choice.
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Yes, 2.25% for these type of patents is considered exorbitant, typical royalty rates would be a flat rate of a buck or less per unit for a bundle of hundreds of these standards required patents. If everyone in a standard required 2.25% for the handful of patents they have that are included in the standard every single device would double or triple in price.
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It's mostly escalation. Microsoft has been trying to damage Android's marketability by making patent demands to everyone. Motorola is now attacking Microsoft in the same way. Nobody takes the high road.
I disagree. While I'm certainly no Microsoft fan, Motorola has dirty hands here. Attempting to weaponize a standards-essential patent to harm Microsoft is dirty pool, and the courts agreed. If Microsoft were trying to do the same with standards-essential patents, you'd have a point. But AFAIK Microsoft is using regular patents not encumbered by FRAND terms in their war.
Microsoft is using heavy artillery. Motorola is using nerve gas. Get the picture?
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Actually, the case is not about the amount. The case is about whether companies negotiating a patent licensing deal should have to negotiate, or whether they can get a jury to set a rate (or deny one) for them (after the court wisely decided not to do so [groklaw.net]).
Microsoft was the company that *proposed* the 2.5% rate, and then had the temerity to call it exorbitant after Google accepted their offer.
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But then the price of the patent would go up too. Patents help innovation by making it cost 110% of the purchase price of the device in licensing, didn't you know?
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Wrong, because they would mostly even out. So say Samsung pay Nokia 2.25% and Nokia pay Samsung 2.25% and that then the balance is close to 0%, and everyone is happy. The people who are not happy, aka Apple and Microsoft who don't have FRAND payments are fighting it, meanwhile charging silly figures for trivial patents.
It's fair, reason and non discriminatory if you are charging everyone the same. So if Samsung pay the same 2.25% for the patents then Microsoft should just pay up.
Ummm, ya (Score:5, Insightful)
2% of the console's price is pretty exorbitant for open standards patents. The whole deal with (F)RAND stuff is "Reasonable and Nondiscriminatory". Now you don't have to license your stuff under that model, but that's how open standards like MPEG-4 and 802.11 are done. Companies pool their patents and set up a standard, and the licenses are fixed. The idea is that anyone can license it for the same amount, and that amount is fair and reasonable.
The reason companies do that is to get their patents used and licensed. I mean if I develop some cool new video compression, but I won't set licensing terms, everyone has to come to me and I decide if you get a license, and if so what it costs, well that will hamper adoption. Many companies will give that a miss since they don't know why it'll cost them. However if it is all out in the open, then it is much more likely to get used and licensed.
Also a lot of standards agencies require it. If you want your IP to be part of whatever standard they make, you have to disclose it, and license it under RAND terms. You don't want to, then it is excluded from the standard.
Well, if you decide to do that, you can't then go and decide to try and stick it to a company you don't like. You can't say "Yes, all our stuff is available under this fair license for all to use, oh except for you, we don't like you so you pay more." Sorry, you gave up that ability when you decided to do the open standards thing and RAND licensing.
Hence, the court decision. Google wanted to play hardball with MS, but they were doing it with patents they'd said they wouldn't do that with. So they got slapped down.
So ya, exorbitant demands. Particularly in context of what we are talking about. Remember Google doesn't own H.264 or 802.11. They only have a small number of the patents on it. So if their share was like 2%, then total cost could easily be 10-20%. If that was the kind of money demanded for those standards, they'd not be used. Google just wanted to screw MS.
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What if Motorola are charging Samsung 2.25% of the device's price for the same patents? Of course Motorola and Samsung have cross licensing of their patent portfolio so the real cost is close to zero, as Samsung are also charging Motorola something close to 2.25% for a patent license.
If Microsoft had been willing to enter into a patent cross licensing deal I am sure that that 2.25% would have effectively come to zero or close to zero.
How is it fair, and none discriminatory if Samsung, Nokia, Sony, etc. are
Not Happening (Score:2)
What if Motorola are charging Samsung 2.25% of the device's price for the same patents?
If that were true Microsoft would not have won.
The fact that they did means no-one else is being charged that level of fee.
There's NO WAY that in the low-margin cell phone business Samsung would be able to pay 2% of the total system price just for a video codec!
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There's NO WAY that in the low-margin cell phone business Samsung would be able to pay 2% of the total system price just for a video codec!
And yet that's exactly what Samsung demanded from Apple for use of a patent embedded in a chip that Apple happened to be using and where the maker of the chip had already paid a royalty for use of that very same technology.
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Apple's evidence is that the actual pricing for others is a lot less (http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/07/apple-says-motorola-demanded-more-than.html). Same as with Microsoft, Motorola (now Google) wanted free access to *all* of the patents, both those covered by FRAND and those that aren't and attempted to bully Microsoft and Apple into such an agreement by demanding decidedly unfair licensing terms for just FRAND patents.
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Would it your change your opinion if you knew that Microsoft's interpretation of FRAND over these patents is for them to pay zero to Motorola for their use? And that's what started this lawsuit in the first place - so far they have paid nothing.
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"Exhorbitant demands"? Really?
Being asked to pay 22% of your total revenue for a video codec is not exorbitant in your world?
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Not at all, revenue has nothing to do with what you should pay for a patent. Turn-over is the more important figure.
5% is usually the opening bid fÃr non-standard patents so 2.5% fÃr a FRAND patent is reasonable.
Whats unreasonable is that Microsoft did not even give an counter offer.
Re:Nice summary (Score:4, Informative)
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MSFT revenue for 2012 is 17.41 billion
Motorola had demanded Microsoft pay annual royalties of up to $4 billion
4 / 17.41 = 0.22975 = 22.975%
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"Exhorbitant demands"? Really?
Every single smartphone (although this is not about smartphones) will be using many hundreds of standard essential patents. Even if a company has been in the business for a long time and has lots of patents itself, it will still be using many hundreds of standard essential patents of others. Now multiply "several hundred" by 2.25%, and if everyone made the same demands, then everyone would have to pay a few thousand percent of their revenue to the patent holders.
Now is this exorbitant?
As _some_ eviden
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Alternatively, someone still likes to troll and knows how to push slashdot's buttons with the pro-MS stuff.
Re:Nice summary (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well, it looks like their lobbying is paying off. Thi sis the same crap they've been pulling with Android 'patents' for years.
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Huh, Google spends the most on lobbying among tech firms.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/6/4/4394234/google-eight-biggest-record-lobbying-washington [theverge.com]
Re:Nice summary (Score:5, Interesting)
This is factually wrong. MS did negotiate. In fact the judge sent the parties to negotiate but obviously Google did not want money from MS but for MS to stop suing Android manufacturers. In this case they were expecting MS to trade patents worth millions for patents worth pennies (you may not agree with patents but this is the current law).
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Yeah. As much as I dislike Microsoft and patents (which is quite a bit...) this is a pretty clear example of abuse by Google. It doesn't matter if the mess started before Google's acquisition -- Google could have elected to be reasonable post acquisition and chose not to. Google bought Motorola for its patent portfolio in a move that seems remarkably like Oracle's acquisition of Sun. The only possible difference is that Google may not have really intended to turn the patents into a cash cow (which was clear
Re:Nice summary (Score:4, Informative)
That would be a problem... ...if $4 billion weren't an initial offer that MS never bothered making a counter offer on.
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Ahem.
Microsoft sued at least half a year before Google acquired Motorola.
And by the way: that $4 billion is 2.25%-which is the same rate that Microsoft charges.
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Ahem.
Can you cite one verifiable instance of MSFT charging 2.25% for a SEP?
I'll hang up & wait for an answer.
Probably for a very long time.
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Motorola DID NOT ENTER into an agreement which is one of the points of this case. Google has not yet acquired Motorola and only Google was in the agreement in question.
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Correction: "had not yet..." not "has not yet..."
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Google wanted lots of money, Microsoft disagreed.
Since the patents were part of a a standard, the jury agreed that Google was asking for too much money.
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Motorola/Google demands $4B for use of use of some H.264 & Wifi patents by MSFT in XBOX and other devices
MSFT disagrees, will pay the license but at RAND rate since Motorola participated in the standards
The case goes to court in Seattle to determine what the rate should be
Motorola sues MSFT in Germany, trying to get an injunction to prevent XBOX sale in Germany.
Seattle court says the case is already in review and German court cannot make a judgement
Seatle court dete
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Mostly correct except for "Seattle court says the case is already in review and German court cannot make a judgement " which isn't true. The Seattle court never demanded anything of the German court. They said you already brought the case up here, and if you (Motorola/Google) try and intimidate the other party, we will make sure your punishment is many times worse than anything you hope to achieve, regardless of what the German court decides. Motorola/Google could have continued their suit in Germany. A
Re:Google or Motorola? (Score:5, Informative)
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As it turns out the courts care.
Re:Who cares (Score:5, Informative)
Motorola.
If you bought a company that did something prior to your buying it, are you evil?
In any case, Microsoft is the evil one in this case because, if you followed the case at all, you would have noticed that Motorola actually asked for a reasonable amount by industry standards but Microsoft didn't even attempt to negotiate and, instead, went straight to a court challenge arguing things that aren't quite even law.
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Microsoft is the evil one in this case because, if you followed the case at all, you would have noticed that Motorola actually asked for a reasonable amount by industry standards but Microsoft didn't even attempt to negotiate and, instead, went straight to a court challenge arguing things that aren't quite even law.
I hate Microsoft with every ounce of my being, but even I think you're full of shit here. Demanding large royalties for standards-essential patents on a small part of a large product is the road to hell for the technology industry.
Re:Who cares (Score:5, Informative)
Agreed. It's a pretty common tactic to open negotiations that way though. Patent holder says 2.25%, Licensee counteroffers 0.0001%, and eventually they arrive at a reasonable number. In this case though Microsoft didn't even make a counteroffer, they just went straight to the courts.
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If you bought a company that did something prior to your buying it, are you evil?
The takeover was apparently completed in May 2012; the story above links to another that goes back to *November* 2012 [slashdot.org], and the filing date on the PDF of the court filing that original story links to [geekwire.com] is also November 2012. (*)
That said, even if it had been, I don't like the principle of absolution of guilt by takeover. If being taken over absolves the company of moral guilt, that raises the possibility of moral hazard, since a company can do evil stuff and get taken over by another who don't have to worry
Re:Who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with the USPO.
Motorola filed the patents which is perfectly in their rights, however what they choose to do was try to extort a lot of unreasonable royalties and licensing fees out of Microsoft which thankfully the courts have found in favour of Microsoft. Yes Microsoft ain't no saints, but thankfully the courts are waking up and stopping this kind of anti-competitive bullshit.
The USPO is not involved in setting the conditions of licensing, royalties, or any other arrangement or agreement for two parties to share or exchange patent IP. A patent filed does not come with a set of conditions on how it should be used, shared, or what fee schedule is applied for royalties or licensing. I am tired of people ignorant of the patent process just throwing out stupid diatribes about the patent office and patents in general. Sure if the USPO grants a patent in the first place that is trivial in nature or duplicates existing work, then by all means slam the USPO. This case is not the time for that.
There is nothing wrong with a patent. Someone that "invents" something has full right to protect their IP. They have a right to be compensated for the effort, time and money that went into creating the idea. I don't care if its a trivial bit of nonsense, or some elaborate mechanical wonder, everyone has a right to invent and turn that into a money making enterprise. The alternative is communism where all your ideas belong to the state and you just get some stale bread for all your effort. Do you want to live in that communist state? Keep slamming patents and decrying for their absolution and everything to do with capitalism and democracy in general.
However what has happened to the humble patent today is they are now are used in a cold war of stockpiling of ideas in a direct effort to prevent competition. The company that succeeds today will have the largest patent portfolio and hopes that the only way for their competition to survive is to have to pay them obscene royalties, or go out of business. Companies like Apple rarely even share their patents, they just make so much obscene profit that they patent every little stupid idea that comes into their heads and hope that each one cuts a tiny slice out of the ability for their competition to create a successful product.
The patent has been weaponized.
There is nothing about the patent that needs to be changed, but the laws surrounding how patents are shared, exchanged, that is the business surrounding the patent, needs to change and its up to courts to start setting precedent that extorting ANY company using and anti-competitive pricing structures or withholding a patent that is necessary to support the standardization of products and services should no longer be tolerated.
Re:Who cares (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone that "invents" something has full right to protect their IP.
No they don't. In neither law nor philosophy does anyone have a "right" to the exclusive use of an idea. Patents are justified because they are believed to be a net benefit to the public. The US Constitution states this explicitly.
The alternative is communism where all your ideas belong to the state and you just get some stale bread for all your effort. Do you want to live in that communist state?
This is a ridiculous argument. Capitalism has existed without patents in the past, and totalitarian communism is not the only alternative to our current IP laws.
Re: (Score:2)
Nice description until you veer off into Applesux land. Apple has categorically stated that it will never use SEP to attack others. None of the lawsuits they initiated involved SEPs.
Which product actually incorporates the IP, though (Score:3)
Part of the problem with many of the software patents being enforced anti-competitively these days is the fact that patent holders are attempting to restrict the consumers of material created with the patent. So you get:
1. Video codecs, where the intellectual property resides in the encoding process, but for which patent rights are being used to restrict decoding. Once encoded, a video format is no different than any other file format. Decoding it is just consuming the media, and shouldn't require a pate
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Anti-competitive behavior is only bad insofar as it retards advancement. You have forgotten this and treat it as a bad value all by itself, which it is not.
Patents stop "competition" from people who did not think up the great idea from stealing it, without paying for any of the work that it took to develop that idea. It is akin to government protecting a farmer's field from raiding, so he can be secure in growing a crop and selling it.
In this, it enhances advancement, which is the real goal, and a good v