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Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

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Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#391

Post by dd36 »

jasonlotito wrote: post #384
VikingCoder wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies are required to maximize their profits, and patents are a legal framework for creating profit. I absolutely blame the patent system, and it's absurd of you to suggest otherwise.

> Companies are required to maximize their profits, This meme needs to die. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/09/h... "There are no statutes that put the shareholder at the top of the corporate priority list." "Nor does the law require, as many believe, that executives and directors owe a special fiduciary duty to shareholders." It needs to die. Edit: And there are many, many other places you ca…

There may not be statutes but there absolutely is case law. In fact, I'm sure there are indirect statutes. There's just no way that the purpose of a for profit company is not to maximize profits to the owners of that company. There may be reasonable debate about where best to deploy capital but those decisions should be justified.

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#392

Post by talmand »

jasonlotito wrote: post #384
VikingCoder wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies are required to maximize their profits, and patents are a legal framework for creating profit. I absolutely blame the patent system, and it's absurd of you to suggest otherwise.

> Companies are required to maximize their profits, This meme needs to die. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/09/h... "There are no statutes that put the shareholder at the top of the corporate priority list." "Nor does the law require, as many believe, that executives and directors owe a special fiduciary duty to shareholders." It needs to die. Edit: And there are many, many other places you ca…

Actually I think that article points out my take on the matter. For most corporations, its duty is to maximize shareholder value; the problem is that too many people have forgotten what that actually means.

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#393

Post by bzbarsky »

bad_user wrote: post #220
x0x0 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but say I want a smartphone, what is my alternative? google, who works harder and harder to sell everything I do to advertisers (now you can't even rate apps w/o a google+ account), and who just shut off transmitting search data so they can screw site owners for more $? microsoft, who is a party to this and actively worked to make the internet worse (and succeeded!) for the better part of a decade? or apple, who at l…

People bitch and moan about Gmail serving ads and yet people bitched and moaned when Google Apps dropped the free version, even though with paid accounts you don't get ads anymore and the pricing of Google Apps is insanely good compared to the alternatives. Android, Chrome, Chrome OS are open-source. Amazon already forked Android. Android is also the only popular mobile operating-system that allows installation of so…

Chrome is not in fact open-source.

Chromium is open-source, but lacks various functionality Chrome has (e.g. the PDF reader, and soon I expect playback of Netflix videos, since I doubt Google will be open-sourcing their CDM). Chromium is also supporting Flash via NPAPI, not Pepper, which Google is planning to kill off.

ChromeOS has similar issues with Netflix, at the very least: the open-source parts can't do it.

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#394

Post by PeterisP »

I'm happy for patent war to go nuclear. It desperately needs reform and neutering; and if lawsuits like these can motivate some big-tech companies like, say, Google to start lobbying seriously for patent reform then this exactly what the world needs.

And by lobbying seriously I don't mean a couple of million that were spent on some other activities - if such companies are eager to spend amount such as 4 billion or 12 billion on purchases that include zero benefit to their products&customers, but simply as patent war ammunition&defense; then I'd expect that they can easily spend hundreds of millions in campaign contributions to extuinguish the patent war as such.

We don't need bigcorps accumulating frivolous patents to ensure mutually assured destruction - it doesn't work that well as a deterrant, and it is used against smaller corporations. We need disarmament.

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#396

Post by justinsteele »

yock wrote: post #388
cloverich wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't blame the patent system. While it is true that patent system should be reformed/eliminated ... But thats the point. You can blame the companies all you want, another will always be there to step up and take advantage of it. I do blame the companies, but what does it matter? Are we likely going to see an Apple Boycott? I doubt it, and changing one companies business practices will have little impact on the ind…

Every system has its exploits, will you blame those systems for their failures? Individuals are always to blame because individuals are the actors in the broken system. The blame must always lie with those doing wrong, or else we're just absolving ourselves of the hurt we cause each other.

It doesn't have to be one or the other, it can be both. A system that does it's best to prevent abuse, and individuals who do not seek out ways to abuse it, combined make a best case scenario.

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#397

Post by gibwell »

pg wrote: post #61

It's a little early to say for sure, but I predict this will do more to hurt Apple's reputation in the tech community than anything they've done before. And that is not a good community to alienate. I would not be surprised if they look back on this move one day and feel that they ended up net worse off as a result. Apple used to be careful not to alienate hackers. And Microsoft has been gradually digging itself out…

With all due respect, they are already suffering as if they had done this, so I think they have little to lose by actually doing it.

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#398

Post by vdaniuk »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #214
WaterSponge wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marketing is a natural occurrence. All companies/people/groups market themselves in one way or another. Your not exactly forced to buy into whats being sold. Why is everyone so stuck on google core being a marketing company? I think its the least of evil profit motivations since hell I might actually be interested in what google has figured out I may want... Vs being locked out without any options and force into deal…

For me the issue isn't marketing itself. It's that in order to show me personalized ads they need to know a lot about me. They have to compile and store a personal profile that can be stolen or subpoenaed by anyone who is sufficiently capable or powerful. But I agree that there is a dilemma. The alternative to ad based business models is to make a payment via a credit card, which identifies me even more directly and…

I am quite happy to be served personalized ads from Google and even Facebook. I regularly get ads for services that interest me greatly, like digitalocean, heroku, cloud66, newrelic, edx, codeschool, teamtreehouse. Thanks, personalized ads!

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#399

Post by moocowduckquack »

dd36 wrote: post #391
jasonlotito wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Companies are required to maximize their profits, This meme needs to die. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/09/09/h... "There are no statutes that put the shareholder at the top of the corporate priority list." "Nor does the law require, as many believe, that executives and directors owe a special fiduciary duty to shareholders." It needs to die. Edit: And there are many, many other places you ca…

There may not be statutes but there absolutely is case law. In fact, I'm sure there are indirect statutes. There's just no way that the purpose of a for profit company is not to maximize profits to the owners of that company. There may be reasonable debate about where best to deploy capital but those decisions should be justified.

A company can have more than one purpose and sometimes maximising profits gets in the way of the other purposes of the business, so just because a business is for profit, does not neccessarily mean that it will seek to maximise that profit or that the owners want it to as they may be just as interested in the other purposes that the business can be put to.

Money alone makes a poor measure of business as business is there to do stuff and money is just one of the processes involved.

Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

#400

Post by gibwell »

pg wrote: post #374
bowlofpetunias wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be true, but let's not get fooled into thinking that because "they" are the enemy, Google must be our friend. Google is playing a very dubious game here, and it has nothing to do with being on "our" side of the patent issue. They've tried to buy the same patents, refused to participate in a joint effort to safeguard those patents for all, and then knowingly violated those patents. All through this, they've b…

I'm sure Google didn't try to buy the patents to do this with them.

Give that they are the ones with a search monopoly, that's clearly true, but it doesn't say anything about their ethics.
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