Google's Latest Acquisition: The perils of licensing to your competitors • Hacker News Board

Re: Google's Latest Acquisition: The perils of licensing to your competitors

#31

Post by recoiledsnake » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 6:58 PM UTC

hollerith wrote: post #22

recoiledsnake wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds very unlikely. If it was that they would've have announced it by now. Or the headline would be 'Google gets joint licensing(and right to sue) for Motorola patents for $6 billion'.

I think the way the courts work is that only the patent owner can sue for infringement. And recent events tend to show that Moto Mobility would not have been able to continue to sell smartphones if they had sold their patents to Google.

>I think the way the courts work is that only the patent owner can sue for infringement.

I am not sure about that, companies like Intellectual Ventures/Lodsys do all kinds of manipulations.

>And recent events tend to show that Moto Mobility would not have been able to continue to sell smartphones if they had sold their patents to Google.

That wouldn't work like that. Google would (need to) provide patent indemnification to Android licensees like Microsoft does with their desktop Windows and mobile WP7.

Re: Google's Latest Acquisition: The perils of licensing to your competitors

#32

Post by Herring » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 7:19 PM UTC

Unimportant. The patent problem needs to be solved Right Now, and it's worth risking a long term complication.

Re: Google's Latest Acquisition: The perils of licensing to your competitors

#33

Post by msbarnett » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 8:00 PM UTC

fpgeek wrote: post #25

rsynnott wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was largely right on profitability, no?

Not really. He forgot to consider the other set of companies making money from Android: Arms merchants like Qualcomm,TI and NVIDIA. For example, NVIDIA is pretty thrilled with all the Tegra 2 design wins they got from Android manufacturers.

He didn't "forget" them; the profitability of component manufacturers has no more to do with the fact that most Android licensee Phone manufacturers aren't turning much profit off the business than the profitability of shovel salesmen has to do with the fact that most gold prospectors never found anything worth selling.

Re: Google's Latest Acquisition: The perils of licensing to your competitors

#34

Post by GHFigs » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 9:22 PM UTC

cooldeal wrote: post #30

ugh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because people don’t share your opinion doesn’t mean that they are purposefully lying. It’s a quite common fallacy, really.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -Sinclair Regardless of the above quote, I do not accuse them of lying. But there's a strong elementy of hypocrisy and fanboyism, both in supporting Apple almost all the time, and screaming bloody murder and abject criticism of any moves by Apple's competitors. Do you seriously think analysis by Asymco, Grub…

accusations of commenters being paid MS shills, which happens all the time here on HN

hnsearch disagrees with you.

Re: Google's Latest Acquisition: The perils of licensing to your competitors

#35

Post by neworbit » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 9:22 PM UTC

hollerith wrote: post #4

Google could shut down Motorola Mobility's hardware business, keeping its patents.

Or, you know, sell it to someone else. HTC or Samsung might buy. Nokia probably not so much :)

Re: Google's Latest Acquisition: The perils of licensing to your competitors

#36

Post by sudonim » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 9:35 PM UTC

"The supplier is also a competitor"

Wasn't there an article recently about how Samsung supplies a large chunk of the components in the iPhone? It's a different department but isn't it the same dilemma?

Re: Google's Latest Acquisition: The perils of licensing to your competitors

#37

Post by ugh » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 9:41 PM UTC

cooldeal wrote: post #30

ugh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because people don’t share your opinion doesn’t mean that they are purposefully lying. It’s a quite common fallacy, really.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -Sinclair Regardless of the above quote, I do not accuse them of lying. But there's a strong elementy of hypocrisy and fanboyism, both in supporting Apple almost all the time, and screaming bloody murder and abject criticism of any moves by Apple's competitors. Do you seriously think analysis by Asymco, Grub…

Do you seriously think analysis by Asymco, Gruber and Marco regarding Apple are the flawless gospel truth?

Why would I have to believe that in order to respect their opinions? I’m not going to sink to the level and just attack them without actually engaging with their arguments. They are coherent and they have arguments, they deserve a response and not just blind attacks.

I’m not sure what any accusations (So, when did that happen?) have to do with that.

Re: Google's Latest Acquisition: The perils of licensing to your competitors

#38

Post by Kartick » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 9:46 PM UTC

cooldeal wrote: post #30

ugh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because people don’t share your opinion doesn’t mean that they are purposefully lying. It’s a quite common fallacy, really.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -Sinclair Regardless of the above quote, I do not accuse them of lying. But there's a strong elementy of hypocrisy and fanboyism, both in supporting Apple almost all the time, and screaming bloody murder and abject criticism of any moves by Apple's competitors. Do you seriously think analysis by Asymco, Grub…

I've been reading Daring Fireball every day for years, but there's no more insight nowadays; only mean Apple fanboyism and snark. Is this the same man who at one time wrote insightful pieces like And Oranges ( http://daringfireball.net/2006/06/and_oranges ) ?

Re: Google's Latest Acquisition: The perils of licensing to your competitors

#39

Post by cooldeal » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 10:28 PM UTC

GHFigs wrote: post #34

cooldeal wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" -Sinclair Regardless of the above quote, I do not accuse them of lying. But there's a strong elementy of hypocrisy and fanboyism, both in supporting Apple almost all the time, and screaming bloody murder and abject criticism of any moves by Apple's competitors. Do you seriously think analysis by Asymco, Grub…

accusations of commenters being paid MS shills, which happens all the time here on HN hnsearch disagrees with you.

From HN search:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2855328

Re: Google's Latest Acquisition: The perils of licensing to your competitors

#40

Post by GHFigs » Mon, Aug 15, 2011, 10:53 PM UTC

cooldeal wrote: post #39

GHFigs wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

accusations of commenters being paid MS shills, which happens all the time here on HN hnsearch disagrees with you.

From HN search: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2855328

By "disagrees with you" I mean one can find more examples of you complaining about it happening than of it actually happening.

Even CamperBob's comment is (in context) referring to commenters on sites like InformationWeek. Even if we generously interpret it as meaning what you say, the idea that it "happens all the time on HN" is a stretch.