Microsoft and Apple are assholes.
Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google
511–520 of 554 posts
Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google
#512Easy people, don't waste your emotional energy. Microsoft has been collecting Android licensing fee for years now. Apple has the objective to kill Androids. And you think Google don't use patent to sue? These companies are all evils.
So far Google has not been used patents offensively. That is quite a big difference.
Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google
#513Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can be anti-gun person, yet if someone invades your home with a gun, I'd cut them slack of they shot them. You can be for nuclear disarmament, yet still support mutually assured destruction until that happens. The point of Google using patents is that unless they apply pain to Apple and Microsoft, they will continue abusing the system. The only leverage to bring about reform or a peace treaty is to fight back. Ye…
You're not getting away with that. It's not OK to say one thing and do another. It called hypocracy and it's low and one thing that Google seem to be doing a lot of late. Here's the thing; Microsoft and Apple aren't abusing the system. They are playing exactly by its rules. Lodsys are a good example of an actor abusing the system. Is the system a bad one? That's a different debate.
Furthermore the "they started" it argument is ridiculous. It doesn't matter who started it! It's also factually incorrect.
Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google
#514Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the operative word in pg's reply is " ok ". That Apple, MS, et. al. are acting in their objective self interest (and to the detriment of all of ours!) is an important point. But it doesn't speak to the moral issue which is that such behavior needs to be condemned and not excused.
If the system incentivizes this behavior, can a publicly traded corporation even choose to ignore it? Would shareholders be able to claim breach of fiduciary duties if they did? Note: I am certainly not arguing that this is a good thing for anyone by any means at all.
> If the system incentivizes this behavior, can a publicly traded corporation even choose to ignore it? Would shareholders be able to claim breach of fiduciary duties if they did?
Corporate officers have wide latitude in determining what actions are in the best interest of the corporation.
In a case like this, the incentive to initiate Nuclear Armageddon for profit has to be balanced against the cost of making developers hate you and desecrating your reputation and standing in the community. It is by no means clear that starting a war in which all sides are susceptible to take heavy losses will be in the interest of shareholders.
Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google
#515Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Retaliation against the real parties in interest by the victims, destruction of the business reputation of anyone associated with this behavior and the reluctance of anyone else to implicitly condone it by doing business with them, causing outrage in Congress or the courts thereby spurring them to respond by making changes to the law that destroy the market value of a multi-billion dollar patent investment, ...
Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google
#516Earlier quoted context omitted.
> then knowingly violated those patents I can't compile hello world in any language without violating dozens of patents.
Which ones?
That's a big part of the problem, actually. If it was clear which patents they were then they could be specifically avoided. The problem is that there are so many overly broad patents that you can't even know which ones you're infringing until the troll jumps out from under the bridge.
But to answer the question in broad terms, the compiler you're using and the operating system you're running it on will probably infringe something or other in its rather comprehensive standard library or system call implementation, which you've incorporated when you type the equivalent of "#include " in your Hello World program.
Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google
#517It's quite easy, in the days, it was Apple vs the rest, and Apple got popular (Mac vs PC, ...)
Now, its Google versus the rest, we'll see how this goes :)
Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google
#518Earlier quoted context omitted.
Robbing homes has the disincentive of being illegal. What disincentive does this behaviour have?
Retaliation against the real parties in interest by the victims, destruction of the business reputation of anyone associated with this behavior and the reluctance of anyone else to implicitly condone it by doing business with them, causing outrage in Congress or the courts thereby spurring them to respond by making changes to the law that destroy the market value of a multi-billion dollar patent investment, ...
Exactly.
The first step in this is speaking up and saying, "Hey, this is really obviously wrong".
Part of the reason that the law doesn't have to get every incentive and disincentive right is because there are other mechanisms available.
I'd like to say that I was going to avoid doing business with these parties, but I already wasn't doing business with these parties, at least not to the best of my knoweldge.
Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google
#519Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I predict it isn't going to do anything to hurt share price.
Re: Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google
#520It's such a sad sight to see companies pour billions into damaging each other (and themselves) rather than innovating and creating new things.