11–20 of 61 posts
- Heise reported this originally: https://www.heise.de/hintergrund/Fritzboxen-AVM-verliert-Pat...
- Golem basically summarized the Heise article: https://www.golem.de/news/patentklagen-avm-droht-vertriebsve...
AVM is notorious for GPL violations. I cannot say anything about these patents (aside from stating the fact that all software patents are bogus, because math cannot be patented), but I would not be surprised if they intentionally violated them.
I wasn't aware of that, do you have sources? It's really odd seeing Chinese companies taking someone to court for IP infringement given that that is the modus operandi of Chinese companies and has been for decades.
Decisions by regional courts are completely irrelevant. They often get reversed by the higher courts, especially in tech cases. Hamburg is more notorious for this, but it's the same for the one here in Munich. Until the higher regional court decides (and maybe the BGH after that) there's no chance that a sales ban will be enacted.
Today I learned SEPs, standard essential patents, are a thing. How on earth adhering to a public standard can be considered an invention is beyond me, nor is how we got to the point that it is common enough to require its own special treatment. Maybe someone can change my mind on why this is an invention worth monopolising, but I doubt it.
If you can put some technology that uses your patents in a standard like WiFi or 5G, that is a license to print money. There are plenty of good ideas that should be in a standard that are patented. Leaving aside the issue of whether it's good those patents exist, you do want that technology in the standards. So it's not like you can say 'all IEEE standards should be patent free'.
As a result lots of standardization meetings involve most participants subtly (or not so subtly) advocating for technical decisions that would mean some patent is used.
AVM is notorious for GPL violations. I cannot say anything about these patents (aside from stating the fact that all software patents are bogus, because math cannot be patented), but I would not be surprised if they intentionally violated them.
There's a lot of things you can say about that, but it's arguably not really a "GPL violation" as commonly understood, and a single incident in almost 40 years of history doesn't make a company "notorious".
"AVM threatens to ban the sale of Fritzbox routers"
No, AVM is the company producing them, they are not threatening themselves to ban selling their own product
And then one title has "regional court" in small caps, another has "Regional Court" with caps
AVM is notorious for GPL violations. I cannot say anything about these patents (aside from stating the fact that all software patents are bogus, because math cannot be patented), but I would not be surprised if they intentionally violated them.
https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/0581867...
AVM recently announced that the business might be sold by the founders. This law suit somehow seems to me that the price for the company should be influenced artificially. On the other hand China just saw protectionism by the US happening and now they are shifting gears. How long will it take until sanctions by the US will be useless?
Of course I oppose the whole business of shoving as many of your own patents into standard protocols that you see in WiFi and 4/5/6G (basically forcing the world to pay you a licensing fee) but that's not just a Chinese practice.
AVM claims they're optimistic about their chances for appealing the ruling, so we'll have to wait and see what happens. So far, the deck seems to be stacked against AVM and their attempted scheme to avoid licensing fees.
I looked at the patent EP3337077B1... It is utter rent-seeking nonsense. Patents are supposed to be for innovation, the patent literally just claims adding a field to a packet indicating if it's for a single user or multiple is a novel invention.
Do you have any examples where any packet field is used to indicate a number of users or symbols?
Today I learned SEPs, standard essential patents, are a thing. How on earth adhering to a public standard can be considered an invention is beyond me, nor is how we got to the point that it is common enough to require its own special treatment. Maybe someone can change my mind on why this is an invention worth monopolising, but I doubt it.
It goes the other way around. First you make the tech (and the patents associated with it) and then push it through the standards body to make it part of a standard. That is the point when it becomes a standard essential patent.