Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft won't stop forcing companies to pay for its bogus Android patents

zdnet.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 133 posts

Re: Microsoft won't stop forcing companies to pay for its bogus Android patents

#111

Post by ZeroGravitas »

zmmmmm wrote: post #98

People often misattribute this patent attack as on Android. What they don't realise is that most of patents involved are simply Linux or general computing patents. In other words, whether you love or hate Android or Google, is irrelevant. This is an exact example of a generic attack on a computing system through use of sketchy, over broad, under substantiated patents. MS happened to deploy it against Android because…

And they already have, back in 2009, suing TomTom for using Linux in their GPS navigation devices:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._TomTom_In....

Re: Microsoft won't stop forcing companies to pay for its bogus Android patents

#113

Post by zaroth »

Symbiote wrote: post #32
josephpmay wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide an example of slide to unlock before the iPhone? Also, I (personally) feel that maglock for a power cable is very different from maglock for a refrigerator. (A ticket terminal and a vending machine are very different devices covered by different patents even if they both utilize the same basic mechanisms.)

> Can you provide an example of slide to unlock before the iPhone? A mediaeval church door bolt. Or whatever. Doing the same thing but "on a computer" shouldn't allow a patent.

By the "same thing" you mean unlocking a church door? There is nothing "the same" about unlocking a slide bolt, and unlocking your phone by swiping an graphic which responds to your touch by animating an element of the graphic along a predefined path.

To the contrary, I think it's quite a clever implementation. If somehow inventions like this did not qualify for patent protection, then very little would. Which is a fine argument if you just hate all patents, but if you actually read and understand the slide-to-unlock patent, as far as software patents go, it's not a bad one.

Some specific claims have been found to have prior art, but the patent as a whole is not invalid. And certainly not because of door bolts.

Re: Microsoft won't stop forcing companies to pay for its bogus Android patents

#114

Post by mikekchar »

gvb wrote: post #93
Supraperplex wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a billion dollars and I write you a mobile OS. Shoot me an email if you are interested.

Does the billion dollars include indemnification against all patent and copyright lawsuits?

I don't know about the OP, but if you pay me up front my shell company will agree to indemnify you against anything you want. For various reasons, I will not personally be responsible for any of it and I do draw a heft salary because I'm awesome. But if there is any money left over after design meetings in the Bahamas on the corporate yacht, I'm sure there will be lawyers available to take it.

Re: Microsoft won't stop forcing companies to pay for its bogus Android patents

#116

Post by Karunamon »

lagadu wrote: post #54
seanwilson wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if MSFT gets royalties from these patents it would be irresponsible (to their shareholders, and employees) for them to ditch them Actively enforcing patents like these hurts Microsoft's relationship with developers, hardware manufacturers, the open source community etc.

The group of people that still hates Microsoft by and large will always hate them until they die. Even if they opened up the patents they'd still be hated for "being evil". There's next to nothing to gain from doing and there's billions to lose.

Can you really blame them? Microsoft's bad behavior and damage to the computing industry from their documented monopolistic, anticompetitive practices had consequences that are still felt today.

They're clearly trying to change their ways, but every now and then (i.e. patent crap) some of the old regime shines through. It shows that the internal mentality hasn't changed as much as they like to put on.

Re: Microsoft won't stop forcing companies to pay for its bogus Android patents

#117

Post by annnnd »

kazuyan wrote: post #115

"So why, with all this, are many open-source fans and developers certain that Microsoft can't be trusted?" Source?

Let's vote: +1.

MS doesn't stand a chance when it comes to me (and I imagine others) trusting them. Too much BS for too many years.

Re: Microsoft won't stop forcing companies to pay for its bogus Android patents

#118

Post by kazuyan »

annnnd wrote: post #117
kazuyan wrote: post #115

"So why, with all this, are many open-source fans and developers certain that Microsoft can't be trusted?" Source?

Let's vote: +1. MS doesn't stand a chance when it comes to me (and I imagine others) trusting them. Too much BS for too many years.

If I were the writer of this article I would rewrite as follow.

"So why, with all this, am I certain that Microsoft can't be trusted?"

If I want to say "So why, with all this, are many open-source fans and developers certain that Microsoft can't be trusted?", then I would want source to back me up. This is how I want to earn "Trust" :)

Re: Microsoft won't stop forcing companies to pay for its bogus Android patents

#119

Post by elcapitan »

I wonder if this kind of behavior is not creating an obstacle for their move towards opening their own software and convincing people to use it outside of the Windows environment. I'm sure all these nice new things have OS licenses that protect their users, but who knows in which direction this will develop. People have become pretty sceptic of the Oracle owned line of technology as well recently.

Re: Microsoft won't stop forcing companies to pay for its bogus Android patents

#120

Post by tremon »

jacquesm wrote: post #30
biot wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the Neonode has "slide to unlock", but Apple's patent is for a very specific set of claims; items which the Neonode didn't implement. With Apple's patent, they claim novelty over having a single graphical element that the user needs to move with predefined start and end points. Another claim expands upon that saying there is a graphical arrow showing direction of movement. Another claim says there is help text e…

Funny, I have a slide-to-unlock device on my front door that fits that specification exactly, the only difference is that it is not 'on a computer'. It's a ridiculous patent.

Yeah, but it doesn't come with a help text explaining to the user what to do.
Post reply on HN