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Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

arstechnica.com

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Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#41

Post by graving »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #32

Wow the Microsoft angle is pretty corrupt. They paid the plaintiff a million bucks plus 5% of the judgement they get against Google, effectively bankrolling their lawsuit and putting a patent troll on commission. There's near-endless bitching and whining about Google being evil these days, but even today nobody sinks as low as Microsoft.

Bing was infringing and Vringo had tens of millions in cash and big investors like Mark Cuban bankrolling it. They certainly didn't need a paltry million bucks to continue the lawsuit.

Vringo already had the jury verdict against Google before the MS settlement. Also, maybe Bing has only 5% of Google's revenue/profit.

Funny that you seem to be falling victim to what you accuse others of doing i.e kneejerk birching and whining.

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#42

Post by linuxhansl »

mwally wrote: post #19

FUCK PATENTS. The old system (copyright, IP, etc) needs to BURN TO THE GROUND.

Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. Fuck software patents... Absolutely. Copyright... Not so much. That is actually useful. Open source and free software would not work without copyright law. Copyright only triggers when you copy somebody else's work, I.e. a specific expression of an idea. Patents trigger when you merely happen to have the same idea.

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#43

Post by ohashi »

danielharan wrote: post #34
protomyth wrote: post #6

"While publicly-traded Vringo" - hum, somehow they have a market cap of $332.30M.

Almost 334 now; it was the first thing I checked after reading that story. A hostile take over might be cheaper than paying royalties.

So if Google took over the company and settled for paying a massive amount to them, this would in turn force Microsoft to pay 5% of that. Except anything Google paid, would essentially go back to Google. Could you bankrupt Microsoft this way?

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#44

Post by xzel »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #32

Wow the Microsoft angle is pretty corrupt. They paid the plaintiff a million bucks plus 5% of the judgement they get against Google, effectively bankrolling their lawsuit and putting a patent troll on commission. There's near-endless bitching and whining about Google being evil these days, but even today nobody sinks as low as Microsoft.

I mean I guess that is one way to look at it. The other could be that they settled. If Google wins the case they pay 5% more of zero, if they lose, Microsoft pays more but so does Google. Its not totally win-win but yeah I can see it mostly being such. But to even get a settlement like that, wouldn't Vringo have to accept it? It isn't just Microsoft malice.

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#45

Post by protomyth »

ohashi wrote: post #43
danielharan wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost 334 now; it was the first thing I checked after reading that story. A hostile take over might be cheaper than paying royalties.

So if Google took over the company and settled for paying a massive amount to them, this would in turn force Microsoft to pay 5% of that. Except anything Google paid, would essentially go back to Google. Could you bankrupt Microsoft this way?

No, the judge would alter his ruling because of a Microsoft appeal. Judges are remarkably unimpressed with such attempts to use their rulings like that.

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#46

Post by protomyth »

danielharan wrote: post #34
protomyth wrote: post #6

"While publicly-traded Vringo" - hum, somehow they have a market cap of $332.30M.

Almost 334 now; it was the first thing I checked after reading that story. A hostile take over might be cheaper than paying royalties.

Probably a Microsoft + Google buyout = status quo is a fine thing if it cheapens the bill

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#47

Post by allochthon »

dangrossman wrote: post #2

> Even though there was no evidence of copying—Vringo admitted as much What a ridiculous system we all operate under. You come up with a mathematical formula for ranking some text on a page (in this case, what ads to show first), and you could now owe $250M/year to some company you've never heard of because they already bought the rights to that formula. It turns my stomach; sorry that I have nothing of more substanc…

I agree. The basis for the plaintiff's suit no doubt consists of rarefied lawyerese, and the plaintiff has probably added no value to the world. But they get many millions. How has the property law been allowed to tie itself up into this knot?

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#48

Post by SilkRoadie »

arunabha wrote: post #38
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #32

Wow the Microsoft angle is pretty corrupt. They paid the plaintiff a million bucks plus 5% of the judgement they get against Google, effectively bankrolling their lawsuit and putting a patent troll on commission. There's near-endless bitching and whining about Google being evil these days, but even today nobody sinks as low as Microsoft.

I read it as Microsoft paid a million dollars and will pay 5% of what Google pays. I dislike Microsoft as much as the next guy, but it seems like they believed the patent would win in court and wanted the cheapest way out.

This is it, not sure how you could read this another way. When reading the article it hit me that this was a great bit of business from Microsoft.

A million dollars isn't much for MS to pay to make this go away... and then only paying 5% of Google will be forced to pay if they lose in court.. Microsoft's legal advisor must be happy with himself today

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#49

Post by graving »

dangrossman wrote: post #2

> Even though there was no evidence of copying—Vringo admitted as much What a ridiculous system we all operate under. You come up with a mathematical formula for ranking some text on a page (in this case, what ads to show first), and you could now owe $250M/year to some company you've never heard of because they already bought the rights to that formula. It turns my stomach; sorry that I have nothing of more substanc…

They(and you), did hear of the company that originally got these patents. Here's the very interesting story behind the patents.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/31/why-google-might-be-going-t...

edit: I am rate limited from replying to fpgeeks reply below so I will post my reply here.

First, the author is extremely clear that he invested in Vringo, in fact the whole article is about why he did so., so I am not sure why you talk about it as if it is kind of a revelation. Second, the article is very informative about the history of the patents and is highly relevant. Third,which of my comments are pro Vringo, really? Fourth, can I be suspicious that you're short Vringo stock, or do you get a free pass just because you have an older HN account.

Re: Court: Google infringed patents, must pay 1.36 percent of AdWords revenue

#50

Post by saraid216 »

linuxhansl wrote: post #9
cycrutchfield wrote: post #4

Disgusting, what a broken system. Can anybody actually defend such a system and explain how it promotes innovation?

It seems to be pretty well established now that this system does not support innovation (at least not in the software business. If the benefit of society as a whole is the objective then inventions are only worth protecting if they would not have occurred without such protection. An idea clearly does not fall into that category, it's worth is in the execution and not in "having it".

> It seems to be pretty well established now that this system does not support innovation (at least not in the software business.

Back when I was actively studying this stuff, it was noted that there are four specific industries where intellectual property just doesn't work as intended. Software was one, pharma was another, and I forget the other two but a quick Google ought to surface them with more credibility than I can drop here.

That's not to say it works much better outside those industries, but it's not completely pointless.

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