When patents attack Android • Hacker News Board

Re: When patents attack Android

#61

Post by mcantelon » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 8:45 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #35

febeling wrote: post #16

Patent lawsuits are probably filed nowadays how you would threat opponent in a game of chess. You just need to attack to maintain the strategic position. You need a lawsuit in an advanced state as a strategic asset. I don't buy that Google is really any better in a moral sense. I do believe, though, that there are plenty of people at the companies driving these current litigations that hate what they are doing. It's…

That is indeed the status quo for the large corporate players, but small-time developers/founders such as myself will still argue against the game because the same tactics are used by slow-moving incumbents and patent trolls to crush the nimble startups that are innovating at a much faster rate. A patent threat against Android in particular is treated as a threat by proxy against all independent developers because of…

It's also a further disincentive to be involved in the American market. The Indian and Chinese markets aren't similarly encumbered.

Re: When patents attack Android

#62

Post by justin_hancock » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 8:45 PM UTC

I think that some people have missed some of the points in the article in particular the aggressive litigation against Samsung, HTC, Motorola etc it isn't just Google thats being targeted. This is an anti-competitive stance, Apple, Oracle and Microsoft are being very aggressive in their pursuits. In my opinion the critical and genuine patents in mobile are linked to the radio portion of the device, the remaining patents are dubious as they don't represent novel or non-obvious solutions to a problem, more I did it this particular way so I am patenting it.

The US patent system, is broken. The cases as far as I know are being fought in the US, I doubt any of the claims would be accepted by a European court, though feel free to correct me.

Re: When patents attack Android

#63

Post by patrickaljord » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 8:45 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #46

patrickaljord wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll#Etymology_and_defi... > Purchases a patent, often from a bankrupt firm, and then sues another company by claiming that one of its products infringes on the purchased patent;

Do you have an example of Apple doing that?

Yes, the Nortel and Novel patent acquisition a couple of weeks ago.

Re: When patents attack Android

#64

Post by maercsrats » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 8:46 PM UTC

watty wrote: post #5

davidu wrote: post #3

Drummond is very smart. And he's always been friendly to me. But that's not to be confused with Google being the good guy. They tried to buy these patents and failed. And they claim that they aren't litigious with patents, and they haven't been yet. But to paint them as the victim is disingenuous -- while they don't use patents offensively, they have many other tools at their disposal that they do use offensively, ma…

They're being painted as a victim because they are. Patents are BS and continue to hinder innovation. They may be anti-competitive in other areas (although I don't know specifics). Can you provide some sources?

There is an anti-compete lawsuit going on between google and skyhook: http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/10/internal-emails-reveal-go...

There needs to be significant patent/ip reform in this country, there's no question about that. Google isn't necessarily a "good guy", though. There is a lot of money to be made out there and all of the big guys are using everything at their disposal to gain the upper hand.

Re: When patents attack Android

#65

Post by jerf » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 8:46 PM UTC

Is this why we're seeing a sudden burst of anti-patent news? Is Google in the early phases of drumming up grassroots support for a direct assault on software patents in general, without their name being on the effort? Is this post actually move 3 instead of move 1?

Honest questions, BTW, if there's anybody with answers who are allowed to give answers...

Re: When patents attack Android

#66

Post by tobias3 » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 8:46 PM UTC

rufo wrote: post #43

I'm kind of disappointed that the word "reform" doesn't show up anywhere in this article. Indeed, one of the main courses of action they're taking is to "strengthen our own patent portfolio"…

Given the current state of american politics would you want to rely on "reform" as crucial element of your business strategy?

Re: When patents attack Android

#67

Post by davidu » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 8:48 PM UTC

nextparadigms wrote: post #13

davidu wrote: post #3

Drummond is very smart. And he's always been friendly to me. But that's not to be confused with Google being the good guy. They tried to buy these patents and failed. And they claim that they aren't litigious with patents, and they haven't been yet. But to paint them as the victim is disingenuous -- while they don't use patents offensively, they have many other tools at their disposal that they do use offensively, ma…

We're talking about patents here. Even if what you say is true, does that mean they "deserve" to be crushed by bogus patents? Bogus patents aren't helping anyone, and in at least several cases they have been used by others to hunt Apple and Microsoft, too.

I think you are looking at it inside a box, as an isolated issues.

Patent litigation is simply a weapon used by companies offensively or defensively.

When in a fight with your competitors you look at your weapons and theirs. When evaluating the visible weaponry of their competitors they see patent litigation near the top of the list. When they look at their arsenal of weapons, they do not see patent litigation at the top of the list. Therefore, they have decided it's better to eliminate patent litigation as a weapon rather than to go into battle against it.

Their strategy is to change the rules of what weapons can be used in battle. :-) It's very smart.

Re: When patents attack Android

#68

Post by blinkingled » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 8:49 PM UTC

Patents are here and companies will find a way to exist with either DoJ's help or by acquiring their own patent portfolio. That's not the interesting news here to me.

I think by being offensive and teaming up with Microsoft, Apple is risking being at the losing end of a huge PR and mind share battle here. Microsoft still makes money using their market position but they are no longer in the mind share race.

Apple's business is in a position right now where they aren't a monopoly yet to start abusing it - unlike Microsoft which has so much leverage that losing mind share and having bad PR doesn't do much in terms of being a dent in existing, established business. However, for Apple if the rising tide against their close-ness continues with the help of economical realities and being perceived as a bully in the same league as Microsoft - they could see stagnation.

Apple has really no reason to pick that bullying route - they are always first to create new market categories, they are the most profitable ones, they still have lot of novelty factor going for them and they can compete in every better way if they wanted.

Re: When patents attack Android

#69

Post by kenjackson » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 8:50 PM UTC

ldar15 wrote: post #52

MikeCapone wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, that one seems to actually be a non-obvious, patentable idea. It made the world a better place. This isn't 1-click checkout or clickable phone numbers on a smart phone... But I don't think Google actually sued anyone when most other search engines started using that method. Correct me if I'm wrong.

It is exactly the kind of innovative solution that multiple developers would discover independently. It is exactly the kind of idea that does not need a 17 year monopoly to incentivize investors to provide cash for its development.

In fact multiple people did discover similar strategies at the same point in time such as: http://www.cs.cornell.edu/home/kleinber/auth.pdf

Re: When patents attack Android

#70

Post by azakai » Wed, Aug 03, 2011, 8:51 PM UTC

AllenKids wrote: post #59

azakai wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have many problems with demands of license fees for patents that are trivial. All of the patents mentioned so far in this battle have been of that sort. This isn't a valid use of the patent system - it's an abuse of that system. This is very clear to both people that suppose software patents and that oppose them. If someone can show a valid, nontrivial patent that Android is being attacked with, I might change my m…

Me think Sun's java patents are very non-trivial. But legally speaking, none of us have the authority to determine what qualifies as trivial. Google certainly has the fund to battle it out and demands re-examination of every patents involved. Just recently Apple got USPTO to declare several S3 patents invalid. Just do it.

> But legally speaking, none of us have the authority to determine what qualifies as trivial.

Technically we can be sued and the court will decide what is 'trivial'. But that is completely messed up. We, the software engineers, know what is trivial or not in our field - software engineering.

If lawyers decide what is trivial and what isn't in software, then every software engineer founding a startup needs a lawyer to go over all the code he or she writes. That's a horrible burden on innovation!