ITC ruling against HTC may spell trouble for other Android makers

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  • Reply 21 of 209
    anifananifan Posts: 25member
    Microsoft was right. Android's legal woes will cost far more than licensing fees.



    Attack of the irony!
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  • Reply 22 of 209
    madgoatmadgoat Posts: 21member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by stelligent View Post


    Although his statement is erroneous, calling him a troll is silly. Some of you don't allow any opinion that is not pro-Apple as hostile. Invest some of that passion in a real life.



    Yes, calling me a troll is silly. I guess, I should elaborate a bit on my statement.



    The patent system needs a serious reworking. being able to patent every little thing is beyond ludicrous. Being able to will a company out of existence just because it does something so simple and so common place just because you put in a patent for it is beyond silly.



    Like what Lodsys is doing with their latest "linking to full version games" patent.



    Patents should exist to protect game changing innovations, not to protect something because it blinks 3 times or because it wiggles 4 times a second.



    Now, yes, HTC may have violated something serious. But the majority of these patents are nothing more that trolling patents.
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  • Reply 23 of 209
    stelligentstelligent Posts: 2,680member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anantksundaram View Post


    Stop spouting overwrought, overgeneralized nonsense.



    Awww, I think you like me. Muah!
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  • Reply 24 of 209
    mdriftmeyermdriftmeyer Posts: 7,503member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tofino View Post


    I think among the early 'prior art' you would find 'apple data detectors' built into system 8 (maybe even earlier - system 7.6 pro?) and probably the basis of this patent. Just because it's obvious now doesn't mean it wasn't an original concept at one point.



    This stuff is also in NeXT and Taligent patents.
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  • Reply 25 of 209
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MadGoat View Post




    Patents should exist to protect game changing innovations, not to protect something because it blinks 3 times or because it wiggles 4 times a second.



    Really, now. One man's "game changing innovation" is another's "blinks 3 times."



    Who are you to decide?
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  • Reply 26 of 209
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by stelligent View Post


    Awww, I think you like me. Muah!



    Ugh.



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  • Reply 27 of 209
    gotwakegotwake Posts: 115member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by stelligent View Post


    Whatever their intentions may be, Apple has broken a golden rule in the telecom industry - I don't sue you if you don't sue me, whether infringement is real or not. Everyone collects his own patent trove as a defensive measure, akin to how the USSR and the USA built up their respective nuclear arsenal as a deterrent. Apple enters this scene like a bull in a china shop and is showing no fear of countersuits. Their interest is very different that of Microsoft, IMO. Microsoft is acting like IBM of old, trying to collect license revenue. Apple is a purist who simply resents other companies trying to copy its products.



    Some of you guys like to make statements that are complete fiction! Here's a little graph of who's suing whom in the telecom trade. It doesn't fit your 'golden rule' of fiction very well. Apple just like every other telecom company is protecting their patents.



    http://blog.mises.org/16970/whos-sui...telecom-world/
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  • Reply 28 of 209
    gotwakegotwake Posts: 115member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MadGoat View Post


    Yes, calling me a troll is silly. I guess, I should elaborate a bit on my statement.



    The patent system needs a serious reworking. being able to patent every little thing is beyond ludicrous. Being able to will a company out of existence just because it does something so simple and so common place just because you put in a patent for it is beyond silly.



    Like what Lodsys is doing with their latest "linking to full version games" patent.



    Patents should exist to protect game changing innovations, not to protect something because it blinks 3 times or because it wiggles 4 times a second.



    Now, yes, HTC may have violated something serious. But the majority of these patents are nothing more that trolling patents.



    It's not just about of these trivial 'blinks 3 times' patents. It's about all of them together protecting a product. The iPhone is covered by 200+ patents not including patents that Apple licenses. A product is a collection of ideas.



    I'm not sure what people want to happen. With the current patent system, companies are coping/stealing ideas everyday. Anything less really screws the innovating company.
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  • Reply 29 of 209
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MadGoat View Post


    As much as I dislike Android and all the other iPhone knockoffs. It seems that Apple is becoming the big patent troll these days.



    I would love to see all the android devices fall off the face of the earth, but not like this.



    The difference between Apple and patent trolls is the patent trolls just sit on their patent portfolios, waiting for other companies to come along and build successful products so they can sue them for some of the profits. Apple is selling many products, in case you hadn't noticed.
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  • Reply 30 of 209
    pendergastpendergast Posts: 1,358member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by poke View Post


    The patent system is messed up. But the case of Apple shows that it's not just patent trolls using patents to extract money that's the problem, it's also the ins and outs of using patents to protect genuine innovation. Android is a clear a case of something IP law should be trying to stop. A company, Google, bought another company, Android, and got them to copy Apple's new phone for the sole purpose of giving it away for free so they could stop Apple from becoming the dominant player in the mobile market and thereby ensure there wasn't gatekeeper between them and the mobile ad market. That's exactly the kind of behaviour IP law should be stopping. Yet Apple has to defend themselves using these bizarre patents that really aren't related to the real issue. Legal issues are always like that - you have to get the right outcome but arguing over a lot of tangential issues - but with IP law it's especially messy.



    This is a very good post.
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  • Reply 31 of 209
    matrix07matrix07 Posts: 1,993member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by robbydek View Post


    It's sort of obvious that Apple had stuff taken, but I wonder if it would be such as big deal if it was another company? The question that remains is will Apple allow a reasonable settlement or is the Federal government going to have to step in because they force their competitors out of business. Hopefully, not the latter. If a company steals another's patent, they should have to pay, but in the same way, a company who holds all the patents for the ideal device, shouldn't be able to keep patents away their competition and hence have no competition. Apple is already huge and we really don't want them being the only major mobile device maker and operating system.



    I'm on the same boat. Let them pay. Android is good for anyone who doesn't want or can't afford iPhone. That's OK but they have to pay. No free ride.
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  • Reply 32 of 209
    pendergastpendergast Posts: 1,358member
    I am more interested in how the courts and ITC view the 5 new patents Apple included in the suit, as I am guessing they include the recently-granted Multi-touch patents.



    Since it would be risky for Apple to press it, I think it would be in Apple's best interest to use these patents to wipe out the S3 claims, use the new patents to sign a lucrative but reasonable licensing deal, and use the precedent to hammer Samsung, arguably the worst offender.



    Since the ITC will not ban large companies like HTC and Samsung, the best scenario for Apple that I see is that it collects between $5-15 on each handset, Samsung stops copying iOS's trade dress with TouchWiz, and, between the Apple, Microsoft, and possibly Nokia licensing fees, OEMs are discourages from pumping the market full of Android phones. Android's biggest competitive advantage is ridiculous OEM support, since it is a free OS. If it's not free, OEMs may turn to WP7, etc.



    I have heard rumblings that OEMs are signing MS's license agreements, as they feel this will protect them from Apple. Any more on that?
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  • Reply 33 of 209
    djsherlydjsherly Posts: 1,031member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by GotWake View Post


    It's not just about of these trivial 'blinks 3 times' patents. It's about all of them together protecting a product. The iPhone is covered by 200+ patents not including patents that Apple licenses. A product is a collection of ideas.



    I'm not sure what people want to happen. With the current patent system, companies are coping/stealing ideas everyday. Anything less really screws the innovating company.



    Well to be fair, there would be no 'stealing' if software patents were not allowed. IP law has made a very uneasy transition into the digital domain. As long as the generic criteria are used to determine patent validity, they will continue to be issued.
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  • Reply 34 of 209
    I see the software patent system changing in a few years. It is a damn joke right now. We are seeing people suing left and right for frivolous reasons. Some Indian company is now suing apple, microsoft and dozens of other companies. Hell I want to patent my software now: a visual user interface that allows interaction with user and hardware.
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  • Reply 35 of 209
    nagrommenagromme Posts: 2,834member
    They may be difficult to work around, but I suspect Google has the staff and budget to do so anyway.



    I wish I understood the details of the patents so I could even begin to judge whether Google copied an Apple invention, or whether the infringement is just Google coming up with the same technologies Apple uses, by sheer bad luck \ The one-line sound-bite patent descriptions are pretty useless by themselves.
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  • Reply 36 of 209
    tbelltbell Posts: 3,146member
    As another person said, a patent troll is a company or party that owns a patent who has no intent, means, or desire to actually develop anything. The only purpose for owning the patent is to sit on it until somebody else arguably comes up with a similar idea so that company can be sued. Instead of being a hideous monster that hides under a bridge waiting for unsuspecting people to walk over it, a patent troll instead quietly sits with the alleged patent while another company develops a product and creates a successful market for the product not knowing somebody out there will claim a patent to the product. Then the patent troll springs out of nowhere and sues.



    Apple can't be compared to a patent troll. It actually spends hundreds of millions of dollars in research in order to bring to market great products. It then wants to profit from the fruit of that labor. Jobs publicly told the whole world when Apple first brought the iPhone to market, we patented the heck out of this thing. Unlike a troll, Apple wasn't hiding its patents, but advertising them.



    It is interesting to note, when the iPhone came out companies like RIM didn't think it was possible a phone could do everything Apple claimed it could do. After seeing Apple's iOS, Google dropped the interface it was planning to use for phones. The original Android Os was nothing like what it turned into after Apple brought the iPhone to market. These companies had a big advantage over Apple because copying another's ideas costs a lot less money then doing the research yourself.



    I honestly am baffled by anybody being upset for Apple trying to defend what is blatant copying. To Microsoft's credit, it came up with an original OS design for Windows 7 used on its phones. So it is possible to do that. It just is easier to blatantly copy, which is the route Google is fond of.





    Quote:
    Originally Posted by MadGoat View Post


    As much as I dislike Android and all the other iPhone knockoffs. It seems that Apple is becoming the big patent troll these days.



    I would love to see all the android devices fall off the face of the earth, but not like this.



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  • Reply 37 of 209
    tbelltbell Posts: 3,146member
    The ITC doesn't issue injunctions. It issues exclusion or cease and desist orders. An exclusion order prevents product from entering the US. A cease and desist order prevents product being stockpiled in the US from being sold.



    In my view, the main benefit of the ITC though is speed. Courts take years to come to decisions in patent litigation cases. The ITC generally takes less then a year.



    Courts also still can issue injunctions they just have to engage in a balancing test to figure out if injunctive relief is appropriate. Before injunctive relief was automatic.



    For anybody interested, here is a decent article that breaks the differences down.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by cloudgazer View Post


    Actually he's closer to being right than you think. The supreme court recently changed the game here and made it far harder to get an injunction from the court system, because courts were required to consider public interest as well as the patent holders rights. Absent an injunction the best a patent holder can do is extract court awarded damages and license fees going forwards.



    The ITC however isn't bound by that ruling, so injunctions are still plausible.



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  • Reply 38 of 209
    minicaptminicapt Posts: 219member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by nagromme View Post


    They may be difficult to work around, but I suspect Google has the staff and budget to do so anyway.



    I wish I understood the details of the patents so I could even begin to judge whether Google copied an Apple invention, or whether the infringement is just Google coming up with the same technologies Apple uses, by sheer bad luck \ The one-line sound-bite patent descriptions are pretty useless by themselves.



    It's the bad luck scenario, much like the process where Microsoft was able to develop Windows using exactly the same Xerox PARC technologies and ideas that Apple 'stole'.



    Cheers
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  • Reply 39 of 209
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by minicapt View Post


    It's the bad luck scenario, much like the process where Microsoft was able to develop Windows using exactly the same Xerox PARC technologies and ideas that Apple 'stole'.



    Cheers



    Are you sure you quoted the post that you intended? Your comments make no sense in relation to it.





    Frasier
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  • Reply 40 of 209
    inkswampinkswamp Posts: 337member
    Quote:

    For their part, HTC and Samsung have accused Apple of resorting to litigation instead of competing fairly in the market.



    Ah, nice to see HTC and Samsung being so innovative when it comes to irony.
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