Patent Troll Shell Company Owned By Microsoft And Apple Launches Massive Patent Attack On Android
from the but-of-course dept
About a year and a half ago, we wrote about "Rockstar Consortium," a shell company set up by Apple and Microsoft (and a few other companies), in which they placed many of the patents they received when they outbid Google to get Nortel's patents. We noted at the time that one of the reasons regulators let Apple, Microsoft, RIM and others team up to buy these patents without it being an antitrust concern was that they promised that all the patents would be able to be licensed on "reasonable terms." Except... once they handed them off to Rockstar, that company's CEO, John Veschi, noted that this promise "does not apply to us."So, in a move that surprises basically no one, Rockstar Consortium has sued Google along with most of the major Android phone makers (Asustek, HTC, Huawei, LG Electronics, Pantech, Samsung, and ZTE) claiming they violate a bunch of those old Nortel patents. This is yet another example of the obnoxious practice of privateering patents, where operating companies shuffle patents off to troll shell companies, to avoid having countersuits launched against their own products. It's pretty obvious that the lawsuits, two of which are listed below, are nothing more than Microsoft and Apple trying to put a dent in Android.
This has nothing to do with patents as innovation, and everything to do with patents trying to stifle competition. Again.
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Filed Under: android, patents, troll
Companies: apple, google, microsoft, nortel, rockstar consortium
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Patents are supposed to protect those poor inventors, and it seems highly unfair that a party should pay a cent more than other parties who are also using the same "invention".
It would be interesting for them to have to disclose how much MS & Apple paid for the rights to use the innovation, and that setting the bar.
Patents are not supposed to be a weapon to stifle innovation so that others in the same space don't have to keep up with advances in technology.
Patents are not supposed to generate a windfall to those who aren't competing.
Patents are not supposed to be a gotcha, used after someone else put it into practice to line the pockets of those who do nothing with the innovation.
How patents are being used are not beneficial to the public, who are supposed to benefit from these laws. Higher prices, crappier products, and even being sued for using a device in the market was never what was intended and it is high time this bullshit be put to an end.
Patents, how they currently operate, merely benefit lawyers who are extracting wealth for doing no more than laying in weight for someone to step into the trap.
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Simple solution to a very bad situation. I just hope Google uses the fact that they said they were not going to allow the patents to be used in a patent war against them and get some type of compensation.
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So if you try to hold Apple accountable for Rockstar, Apple just shrugs shoulders and says "They're out of control! What can we do? We're powerless. I hope they don't sue us [heh heh]."
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Re: 2 out of 11 are egregious out of the blue mentions for out_of_the_blue!
Unrelated tag-line jammed in as Mike just doesn't re-write important enough pieces to bring it up:
"Capitalism" in practice today means that your access to capital is only by paying high interest rates to The Rich, while their access to "capital" is at very low rates direct from government printing presses.
01:22:37[b-485-1]
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They are slowly scrapping the Android Open Source Project - the only reason to pick Android in the first place - slowly, but surely tightening their grip on the ecosystem. It will become another walled garden soon.
So Google can go die in a fire, as far as I am concerned.
And for those who think that I am crazy, read this:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by- any-means-necessary/
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/11/google-just-pulled-a-facebook-home-kitkat s-primary-interface-is-google-search/
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I read those, and while I don't think you're crazy, I do think you're overly hyperbolic.
Those articles are talking about Google's completely optional closed-sourced applications. Nothing in those articles indicates that Google is making Android a walled garden. Open source android isn't going away.
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But it turns out that developers, handset vendors, and customers all prefer the structure that can be provided by a strong hand on the rudder. Android not completely open, but it's not closed either. Yet it benefits greatly from the strong guidance provided by Google - an SDK, a roadmap, an app marketplace, etc.
Google also has two versions, more or less. The more proprietary version they offer to their handset partners, and Android Open Source Project (ASOP) version. BTW, note that the handset partners have a lot of leeway in altering Android, adding credence to the "openness" of it.
But if you want even more open than Android, I have a long list of mobile OSes that were mostly open. They all failed compared to their more structured counterparts.
-java (I worked on this here in 1997-99)
-Symbian went open in its dying throes
-Moblin
-Tizen
-MeeGo
-Mer
-Jolla
-Ubuntu Mobile
Notice any big successes in that list? Me neither. It seems the one consistent defining characteristic of a fully open mobile platform is: terrible market adoption. So while a small cadre of true linux geeks continue to moan and try to reveal the "secret" that Android "isn't really open", the majority of us already know, and we don't care.
In here is a GigaOm paper I co-authored on the subject.
http://www.xirrus.com/cdn/pdf/gigaom_futureofwifi_final
-Sailfish
-Ubuntu mobile
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The companies that make up Rockstar Consortium would not get their money back as penalty and for the patents put up for sale again, but said companies involved on RC would not be allowed to bid as additional penalty.
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It's really no different than the not-quite-a-first-sale license doctrine the companies are all pushing. They sell you stuff, then claim it's a license not a sale despite the fact that they're following the rules for sales not licenses. Violate the license and the sale goes away.
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At this point we only know that Rockstar and Google are not in agreement and that Rockstar is only asking for money. Is too early to know if Rockstar is a troll or Google what to no have to pay a thing because it think that it can get away with it while their competitors has had to pay several billion dollar to purchase that licences
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They both have dodads in the market competing with Google.
The patents can be used to stop Google from gaining marketshare and prop up the other companies offerings.
I mean its not like there has been tit for tat bullshit keeping phones from being imported for sale... oh wait... Apple.
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Of course this "rights" will end in the hand of one of the competitor in any field were the invention is usefull
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1. No one force them to pay anything for the patents.
2. Paying 4.6 Billion$ to own the patent doesn't automatically mean that using them would or should cost anything as the two are not related to one another.
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(apologies to Dan Rather)
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I would not have a problem.
What I don't agree with is the Microsoft & Apple patent troll approach.
Remember when forming what would became Rockstar, Google was offered a chair in the table and it decided to go alone do you thing Google wanted this patents all for itself to give them for free to the world? as has done with the ones of Motorola :P.
Google, Apple and Microsoft are in a three ways patent war, there is no troll and no innocent just 3 very big companies trying to get the maximum advantage of the rules of the game that Google seem to be the worst player although seem to be the most loved by the public is no reason to be easy on them.
With what we know right now prejudging that the one abusing the rules is Rockstar is with what I disagree.
We know Google offered 4. � Billion$ for this patents and Rockstar paid a bit more.
we know Rockstar is only asking for money so the dispute is only for money not limiting production of anything and Google is not any short in cash small company easy bullied out of it.
and that Google and Rockstar did not agree in how much Google should pay
Apple & Microsft already paid 4.7? Billlion$
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Your new car drops to half value when you drive off the lot.
That diamond drops in value once you buy it.
Just because you paid X doesn't entitle you to extract X.
And as Rockstar is a separate entity, I'd still like to know how much others using the patents are paying them. I mean unless your charging different rates to hinder others in competition with you in the free market.
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Unlike Apple and Microsoft, Google does *not* have a long record of suing people over patents. I don't agree with everything they do, but in this particular case they're clearly the good guys.
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How about this alternate reality: Google bid for the patents so that they could prevent somebody else from suing them with said patents.
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And Google bid only 4.4 BILLION on this for WHY?
Disclaimer: I want to do away entirely with software patents. Working physical models only, just as the old days. -- By the way: in fifteen years, Mike hasn't made a single concrete proposal this area, either. And he's only writing here because his precious Google is on the wrong end of this particular unfair business practice.
Economics is a non-science that makes fantasies to flatter plutocrats, an easy path to a degree for those who inherit, who remain willfully ignorant of the effects on laborers.
01:15:43[b-226-7]
[I see the kids are out early, stealing my valuable screen name. That's why I have to defend it with the above time stamp. -- And I'm pleased to do so! Shows my effect here, besides is fun to frustrate the ankle-biters! You haven't ever run me off, kids.]
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Re: And Google bid only 4.4 BILLION on this for WHY?
How to shut up ootb. He keeps making this claim, and as soon as anyone points out that he's full of shit he disappears. Just watch.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110819/14021115603/so-how-do-we-fix-patent-system.shtml
http ://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121127/11245721156/some-thoughts-fixing-problems-patent-system.shtml
h ttp://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120712/18322919680/judge-posner-mission-to-fix-patents-we-have-som e-suggestions.shtml
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The sad part is usually unseen: the small folks and the innovation that gets stuck in the crossfire.
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@. Troll? You cannot be serious! Has the definition of troll now been expanded to embrace companies that actually make, sell, and service things, but engage in a means for conducting litigation providing them a tactical advantage?
3. Try and recapture some market share. The fact that companies using competing operating systems in the phone/tablet market should tell people something, namely the distinct possibility that the "Android" family of phone and tablet manufacturers may not have been playing by the "rules" of business. Use your own stuff and quit reaching over the transom to cherry pick that which suits your needs.
It seems to me that the only purpose of this article is to once again regurgitate the deep seated animus here towards anything associated with copyright and patent law that involves the assertion of rights long ago created and recognized by law.
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So, by your logic, before the civil war the north was wrong to have deep hatred towards slavery and the whole slavery system? Because you know, slavery was created and recognized by law centuries earlier, so the north clearly had 'deep seated animus here towards anything associated with' slavery.
Just because it's the law and established doesn't mean it's morally right, and doesn't mean it's a good law that benefits the economy (as slavery and the copyright/patent system were both supposed to do).
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No one put slavery and patents 'on the same plane' except your curious retort. What was said was that the logic you applied basically works out to 'the law should never ever change or recognize it was wrong or allowed something grossly immoral to happen.'
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Re: Re: Argument from Antiquity
The argument from antiquity is one used all the time.
There is also the problem of judging a program by the claims used to justify it, rather than by its actual results.
No matter how lofty and altruistic the claims made to justify Patent and Copyright, those claims cannot justify the awful results of the actual laws used to enact them.
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2. When did Rockstar make, sell, and service things? They are by every definition, a troll.
3. I don't know who you are saying should try to recapture market share. I would say Microsoft, Apple, RIM, etc should be trying to recapture market share instead of throwing money at lawyers to do the work for them.
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M$ and the gray fruit bought the patents, promising not to use it to litigate, but license it.
They circumvented this condition by passing the patents to a shell company.
It'd be interesting to see what the courts have to say about this.
Also: Fuck patents already. No productive and innovative company needs them to innovate.
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time ot stop buying lawyers products
well fuck you fromthe rest of the planet
and how awful is that stupid looking windows 8
NO really grade 2 squares and 6 colors
apple without jobs = just a bunch a spoiled brat lawyers
dont care they sue google the nsa spy buddy, but hey apple and micro crap also are buds of the nsa , time to start leaking the nsa holes in your operating systems a little at a time much like a snowden release
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In other words, patents do the complete opposite of what their stated benefits are supposed to be. Which is increase innovation, as well as making health care and food more affordable.
The complete opposite!
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Cable Lobbyist Tom Wheeler Confirmed As New FCC Chief
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/10/30/1546234/cable-lobbyist-tom-wheeler-confirmed-as-new-fcc- chief
I want public representatives in office and the only thing we have are industry representatives. I'm sick of it.
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Prior Art Will Invalidate the Main Patent
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBEtPQDQNcI
9 minutes in.
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Patent Troll Shell Company
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