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

arstechnica.com

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

#491

Post by throwawaykf »

kbenson wrote: post #435
throwawaykf wrote: post #418

Allow me to inject some perspective. 1) For all the talk of Microsoft and Apple "abusing patents", it was actually Google that had to pay 14 million in damages for actually doing just that. Let's just not forget that before deciding who should be "alienating the tech community". However, Google's PR really is very good, and unfortunately, most people here accept it without critical thought because it confirms their b…

I don't know how you can expect to keep a neutral tone when equating this to war. That is striking an incendiary tone from the beginning. Releasing Android was not an "attack". It was entering a market with a competitive product. The fact that Google was able to leverage new methods and resources (open source and the continued evolving of the Linux kernel) to reduce the cost of their offering (to the point of changin…

The comparison to war was simply a rhetoric device to imply that all is fair in love and war.

> Releasing Android was not an "attack". It was entering a market with a competitive product. The fact that Google was able to leverage new methods and resources (open source and the continued evolving of the Linux kernel) to reduce the cost of their offering (to the point of changing where revenue is generated in the product) is a normal market behavior.

That's one perspective. See my response to the sibling comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6657912) to see another perspective. Google was not the first to think of using Linux for a mobile OS (See: Maemo). But think of where the real competitive advantage for Android came from: Now can you now think why Apple is unhappy?

>* Pooling monopolistic grants and abusing the legal system to thwart market behavior is not something I think we should condone, regardless of how much the other companies felt under attack.*

"Monopolistic grants" is just a biased way to look at the patent system that most of the other tech industry works with just fine. "Abusing the legal system"? Again, let's just keep in mind it was not Apple or Microsoft, but Google which was found by a federal jury to be doing so, and charged millions of dollars for that.

Google did whatever they thought they could get away with legally to get an advantage. These companies are simply doing the same.

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

#492

Post by pyre »

nullc wrote: post #490
masklinn wrote: post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The operative word in cs705's comment is incentive . The patent system is broken in such a way that not only does it makes possible to get away with this behavior, it encourages and rewards it. That's very different than merely "making it possible".

Robbing homes is possible and rewarding. Saying that doing something wrong is rewarding is not sufficient.

Robbing homes has the disincentive of being illegal. What disincentive does this behaviour have?

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

#493

Post by pyre »

clarky07 wrote: post #486
pg wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly true that the patent system is broken. But the fact you can get away with doing something due to broken laws doesn't make it ok to do it.

I don't like this any more than the next guy, but it's not like apple and microsoft aren't also getting sued. At some point offense can be the best defense. Edit: also, apple and microsoft also actually make things. This puts them in a different class than patent trolls like lodsys(sp?)

Isn't Lodsys a child of Intellectual Ventures, which Microsoft and Apple are/were investors in?

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

#494

Post by pyre »

wmeredith wrote: post #376
cs702 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unhappy with Apple and Microsoft too, but the real enemy is a broken patent system that creates the perverse incentives that motivate companies to launch lawsuits like this one, to the detriment of society. Regardless of who wins, we have already lost, because we have a patent system that discourages innovation and competition in software! Maybe the prospect of patent Armageddon will finally force lawmakers to ad…

This is the logical equivalent of, "don't hate the player, hate the game." And it holds about as much water. If any company in the world has the warchest to bow out of petty patent politics, it's Apple.

Apple and Microsoft were part of a consortium. Do we know that Apple was a ringleader here? Maybe they just are along for the ride to make sure that they weren't in the crosshairs?

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

#495

Post by kbenson »

throwawaykf wrote: post #491
kbenson wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how you can expect to keep a neutral tone when equating this to war. That is striking an incendiary tone from the beginning. Releasing Android was not an "attack". It was entering a market with a competitive product. The fact that Google was able to leverage new methods and resources (open source and the continued evolving of the Linux kernel) to reduce the cost of their offering (to the point of changin…

The comparison to war was simply a rhetoric device to imply that all is fair in love and war. > Releasing Android was not an "attack". It was entering a market with a competitive product. The fact that Google was able to leverage new methods and resources (open source and the continued evolving of the Linux kernel) to reduce the cost of their offering (to the point of changing where revenue is generated in the produc…

I happened to see your other comment when it was just a few minutes old. I almost replied to it directly, but it would only have been to say "huh?" I found it hard to distinguish when you were purposefully being extreme and when you were making actual assertions of your own views (if any). A fine exhibit of Poe's law, I guess, as even though you indicate sarcasm, I'm not sure where it starts...

I wasn't terming them "monopolistic grants" to vilify them (those words are used in the law itself), merely to more clearly express the specific aspects they are pooling that I object to. Specifically, with in more detail, it's the pooling of the patents into a third party to make use of the patents while protecting the parent companies from much of the downsides of using their patents against believed infringers. I term that abusing the legal system. It may not be illegal yet, but that doesn't stop me from deeming it a morally repugnant perversion of how the patent system is supposed to operate.

Google may indeed be guilty of patent infringement based on their actions, but from where I'm standing, it's nowhere near clear. I would prefer less legal maneuvering and more clear cases regarding patents and suspected patent infringement, but unfortunately it's not in patent holder's interests to test whether patents are actually valid, as they are much more useful as a tool to intimidate.

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

#496

Post by throwawaykf »

throwawaykf wrote: post #418

Allow me to inject some perspective. 1) For all the talk of Microsoft and Apple "abusing patents", it was actually Google that had to pay 14 million in damages for actually doing just that. Let's just not forget that before deciding who should be "alienating the tech community". However, Google's PR really is very good, and unfortunately, most people here accept it without critical thought because it confirms their b…

Ugh, just realized... this was supposed to be a reply to pg's top-rated comment but I ended up posting it as a separate thread. As such, the second half appears completely out of context.

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

#497

Post by LVB »

At my last job, 15 years ago, I was granted four patents. I also got a fancy engraved plaque for each one. I've since moved, and those plaques sit in unpacked boxes. My wife has occasionally pressed me to hang then up like I used to, when we both saw them as a point of pride. I have trouble explaining to her why they're an embarrassment to me now, and that I'm not showing them off.

I'll be happy when I see they've expired.

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

#498

Post by gbhn »

Tyrannosaurs wrote: post #348
Perseids wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But isn't the point being made that this is better not looked at as a good versus bad, it's better looked at as one sort of bad against another sort of bad. The direct consequence of this would be a call to get rid of the evil on both sides and abolish the (software) patent system altogether. I'd like to emphasize a quote from the end of the article: > Patents have become the arena in which tech companies have chos…

> There is no longer competition about the best user experience or the best technical solution to an engineering problem but competition about who can file the best vague, yet court approved patent and secure the most destructive intellectual properties. I don't understand why we are still only talking about reforming the patent system. Seriously? iOS7 and Android Kit Kat both move user experience forward both in ter…

The amount spent on patents and related litigation is massive. There are other large costs as well of course, but the patent fiasco is a large drag on the industry.

Something I'd like to see in addition to the now-pending reform is a law limiting damages to a fraction of revenue related to how the patent figures in the device in question. That ends up looking like a mandatory licensing fee, which I think would be about right for those few tech patents which are actually valid.

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

#499

Post by DannyBee »

belorn wrote: post #474
ubernostrum wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to go all meme on you, but let me FTFY: Google wanted a platform that prevented Microsoft and Apple from beating them to control of the next big advertising platform. Nothing more, nothing less. "Open" has been shown conclusively to take a back seat to monetization. It is as much a marketing tactic (in the sense that it's useful to promote the platform, but can and will be discarded, with spin to explain why, whe…

Given the context of this discussion, it must be mentioned that LLVM license do not include a patent grant. Apple has patented several frontends of LLVM, and is likely to have several patents on the core parts of LLVM. Apple could do a oracle at any time.

"and is likely to have several patents on the core parts of LLVM"

While I work for Google, and was involved in the CPTN and Rockstar stuff (and thus can't comment on this article at all, though I wish I could), i can actually point out that this statement is not right.

First, companies that wish to contribute to LLVM are asked to non-assert patents involved in their contributions. This is covered in the dev policy, and has been for a long time. Their are non-assertions/grants on file for a number of companies now.

As for whether Apple owns any patents on LLVM core, Chris Lattner himself told me Apple held none, which is why they had not filed a non-assertion.

Apple may or may not hold patents on LLVM code that is not "in tree" (so yes, they may have non-public frontends or backends they own patents on), and I never specifically asked about the clang frontend, but I trust Chris enough to know that if there was in-project code, be it clang or core or whatever, he would have followed the dev policy and Apple would have non-asserted them.

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

#500

Post by timberlane »

mark-r wrote: post #467
chc wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are seriously suggesting that Tim Cook would have been ousted had Apple not gone down this road, I think you and the rest of the world are just going to have to agree to disagree.

You misunderstand. Tim Cook wouldn't have gotten the job in the first place if the board had thought he would shy away from such a decision.

Unless pg is right, and this will actually hurt aap's share price. And pg is not always wrong.
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