Earlier quoted context omitted.
They should be more careful in the company they regarding their marketing tactics/UX then , eh?
How?
Not using or paying for content obtrusive pop-overs would be a good start.
Apple Tells Lodsys Patent Troll to Back Off
41–50 of 54 posts
Re: Apple Tells Lodsys Patent Troll to Back Off
#42Don't forget, though, that this is unlikely to be the end. Lodsys clearly disagrees with this, given that they sent the letters to the developers, and will probably take Apple to court over whether the license applies to the app makers or not.
I don't see why Lodsys would take Apple to court given that both parties acknowledge that Apple and Lodsys have a licensing agreement for the technology. And the given the fact that Lodsys's claim is that Appstore developers do not have such a license their pursuit of individual developers makes sense.
As it stands now, if there is to be a suit between Apple and Lodsys, it will require Apple to act as plaintiff on behalf of its developers and that could potentially open up a huge can of worms for Apple because it could establish a higher level obligations and responsibilities between Apple and its developers. The fact that Apple responded via public letter rather than lawsuit is indicative of approaching this as a PR issue rather than a serious licensing issue - i.e. if it was clear that Apple's agreement with Lodsys allowed them to sub-license the technology to third parties they would have sought an injunction rather than issuing what boils down to essentially a press release.
Re: Apple Tells Lodsys Patent Troll to Back Off
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
They should be more careful in the company they regarding their marketing tactics/UX then , eh?
How?
Well, the first-order solution is to not buy popup ads. Popup ads plus "software that 'cleans' your machine" equals "warning sign".
But presumably these ads work, and maybe they work so well that it's worth the collateral damage to one's brand from people whose first reaction is like mine. Hey, it's your life.
The other defense is to build the brand. Get some reviews from someone I've heard of. Name-check those reviews in the ad, maybe even with a link. Buy other ads in other places, where I might see them as I surf. Change the call-to-action buttons to read a little more like "learn more" and a little less like "install this thing now". Heck, I don't know.
And, yes, it's true, the existence of well-known trojans masquerading as "security" software is unfair to legitimate system-utility vendors, just as the existence of spam is unfair to legitimate friendly emailers and the existence of the flu is unfair to people who like to shake hands. What am I supposed to do about that? Encourage people to sneeze on me in the spirit of brotherly love?
Re: Apple Tells Lodsys Patent Troll to Back Off
#44It's disappointing that the response is "we've already licensed that" rather than "you cannot possibly believe that you really own that." Everyone I know who is doing real work in tech agrees that patents like this are BS. But everyone keeps playing the broken game. No one yet has had the incentive to make a real push (like lobbying) for real patent reform. It's still cheaper to swat the flies than it is to, I dunno,…
> It's disappointing that the response is "we've already licensed that" rather than "you cannot possibly believe that you really own that."
How exactly would the latter proposed response actually help?
Re: Apple Tells Lodsys Patent Troll to Back Off
#45Wow, talk about shooting yourself (Lodsys) in the foot - As above, in the notice letters we have seen, Lodsys uses screenshots that expressly identify the App Store as the entity that purportedly collects and manages the results of these user interactions at a central location. Thus, the technology that is targeted in your notice letters is technology that Apple is expressly licensed under the Lodsys patents to offer…
Number of times this comment thread has referenced shooting oneself: 5.
Awesome.
Re: Apple Tells Lodsys Patent Troll to Back Off
#46It's disappointing that the response is "we've already licensed that" rather than "you cannot possibly believe that you really own that." Everyone I know who is doing real work in tech agrees that patents like this are BS. But everyone keeps playing the broken game. No one yet has had the incentive to make a real push (like lobbying) for real patent reform. It's still cheaper to swat the flies than it is to, I dunno,…
No one yet has had the incentive to make a real push (like lobbying) for real patent reform. There's a catch-22 in this situation. Only large companies have the lobbying muscle to effect change. Apple, Microsoft, Google, and other players clearly risk more than they gain from the current patent system, but if they speak out against it, the trolls will organize a PR campaign smearing "huge, faceless corporations" for…
While this is true, I think it's more about the money they all are able to derive from each other wielding their respective patent portfolios than about the potential bad press from trolls.
Really in this scenario the trolls are almost the good guys, as long as they are attacking the big players like Microsoft. If we get enough cases like i4i v. MS, the big companies will decide that the current patent system is too dangerous even considering their large patent portfolios that they use to reciprocally gouge their contemporaries and competitors out of money.
Right now MS et al are not too worried about patents because any competitor who brings a suit on a patent claim can be counter-sued by one of MS's patents; if someone comes demanding that MS buy a license, MS can reciprocate and demand that that party license a patent it holds. These kinds of cross-licensing agreements and reciprocal lawsuits go on behind the scenes all the day long at the big tech players.
If we get more patent trolls who only hold patents and don't put out a real product for the big guys to counter-target with their own portfolio of tech patents, then we'll be in a situation where even an extensive portfolio can't protect the big players any more and they'll have to advocate for reform. We just have to make it cost more than their profit from cross-licensing, etc.
Just another handful of injunctions similar to the one from i4i case, which ordered MS to stop selling Office, and we'll be looking good.
Re: Apple Tells Lodsys Patent Troll to Back Off
#47It's disappointing that the response is "we've already licensed that" rather than "you cannot possibly believe that you really own that." Everyone I know who is doing real work in tech agrees that patents like this are BS. But everyone keeps playing the broken game. No one yet has had the incentive to make a real push (like lobbying) for real patent reform. It's still cheaper to swat the flies than it is to, I dunno,…
> It's disappointing that the response is "we've already licensed that" rather than "you cannot possibly believe that you really own that." How exactly would the latter proposed response actually help?
The actual response further legitimizes a broken system. It presupposes that the patent is valid. Nontechnical people (including lawmakers) reading the news about it will continue to have a mistaken impression in their heads that the patent system is a functioning, productive system that technical people are fully behind.
The proposed response would be a small step towards delegitimizing it in people's minds. People love Apple products; if they heard from Apple that this patent part of a deeply broken system, that would be one step on the way towards actually getting it changed.
Re: Apple Tells Lodsys Patent Troll to Back Off
#48It's disappointing that the response is "we've already licensed that" rather than "you cannot possibly believe that you really own that." Everyone I know who is doing real work in tech agrees that patents like this are BS. But everyone keeps playing the broken game. No one yet has had the incentive to make a real push (like lobbying) for real patent reform. It's still cheaper to swat the flies than it is to, I dunno,…
The licensing fees are typically on the order of 1/100th to 1/1000th of what you might have to pay if you lose an infringement case in court. I forget the exact margin, and it varies by circuit, but something Federal court decisions in these cases tend to break in favor of the plaintiff.
It may disappoint you, but no company in their right mind is going to take that gamble.
(IANAL but one of my good friends is a self-confessed patent troll -- in this market, you take what you can get. He explained the whole racket to me over beers one night.)
Re: Apple Tells Lodsys Patent Troll to Back Off
#49Now this whole thing has officially passed beyond the ability of the average internet commenter to reasonably comment upon.
I'll take a whack ;D A la the RIAA shakedown business model a patent troll tried to extort a bunch of independent developers that had no chance of fighting back. Then Apple (with their well-documented $60 billion of fuck-you money) stepped in and said we've already paid you your protection fee-it transfers to our developers, now please go away before this gets ugly. I think this is pretty great. (Other than the fact…
I'm thinking more along the lines of being able to evaluate whether Apple's lawyers are correct or not in their conclusions.
Re: Apple Tells Lodsys Patent Troll to Back Off
#50Don't forget, though, that this is unlikely to be the end. Lodsys clearly disagrees with this, given that they sent the letters to the developers, and will probably take Apple to court over whether the license applies to the app makers or not.
I don't see why Lodsys would take Apple to court given that both parties acknowledge that Apple and Lodsys have a licensing agreement for the technology. And the given the fact that Lodsys's claim is that Appstore developers do not have such a license their pursuit of individual developers makes sense. As it stands now, if there is to be a suit between Apple and Lodsys, it will require Apple to act as plaintiff on be…
Seems to me (IANAL) that Apple could sue on fraud or breach of contract: if Lodsys sold a license to Apple on the pretext that the developers were covered, and then later went after those developers as if they weren't covered, Apple could claim that Lodsys either misrepresented themselves, or failed to honor their side of the contract.