Given the fact that in the current mobile industry, you literally cannot create a new product without violating some patents
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Now most here woult argue that the owners of the current technology needs to be compensated for that, no doubt, but how to compensate is the question. Should they be allowed to be compensated by being awarded the monopoly to the right to further improve that technology?
Fundamental patents typically end up in a patent pool available under FRAND agreements.
If they don't then the rest of the industry has little choice but to move the standards in another direction and make that monopoly relatively meaningless. This is especially true of the mobile industry since one primary driver is mobile provider CAPEX. They aren't going to sink billions into a buildout based on products that can only be produced by a single company because it owns the fundamental patent unless the competitive advantage is so disruptively huge that if they don't and their competitors do that it's game over.
So the so-called monopoly right of incumbents is a straw man in this instance.
You mean other than the implicit admission that Google is using patents from others without a license so it needs a defensive patent portfolio (as pointed out by Gruber)?
Sure, that's all true, but unless Microsoft potentially infringed some of those Novell patents they wouldn't have been any use as a defensive portfolio - so MS buying into them was an implicit admission that it infringed.
Google isn't the only firm that needs a defensive patent portfolio, it's just the only big firm that needs one that doesn't already have one.
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You CAN do business with MSFT/JAVA/ORCL without a defensive patent portfolio as they seem to be willing to license. APPL maybe not so much but they are explicitly calling out MSFT as part of some weird tech conspiracy theory.
You can do it but it will cost you, particularly if you're setting up a rival platform. If you have no strength in your own negotiating position then you will get screwed on the licensing fees. MSFT seems to be trying to get more per android handset in licensing than it gets per WP7 handset. Oracle is definitely after far more per Android handset than it ever got per Java handset.
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No, folks aren't missing the point at all.
I think the real point here was that Google sunk its own battleship in PR terms. This is like John Kerry's 'I voted for the bill before I voted against it' line. There's something in there, but there's no way to make the case in a way that doesn't end up seeming ridiculous.
Google must really wish they'd bought Sun last year and not let it fall to Oracle.
I'll bet you any amount of money you can collateralize that you can't give me an example of an innovation since 1776 that isn't just an improvement of existing technology.
Comments
Given the fact that in the current mobile industry, you literally cannot create a new product without violating some patents
...
Now most here woult argue that the owners of the current technology needs to be compensated for that, no doubt, but how to compensate is the question. Should they be allowed to be compensated by being awarded the monopoly to the right to further improve that technology?
Fundamental patents typically end up in a patent pool available under FRAND agreements.
If they don't then the rest of the industry has little choice but to move the standards in another direction and make that monopoly relatively meaningless. This is especially true of the mobile industry since one primary driver is mobile provider CAPEX. They aren't going to sink billions into a buildout based on products that can only be produced by a single company because it owns the fundamental patent unless the competitive advantage is so disruptively huge that if they don't and their competitors do that it's game over.
So the so-called monopoly right of incumbents is a straw man in this instance.
An oldie by now but still a goodie.
You mean other than the implicit admission that Google is using patents from others without a license so it needs a defensive patent portfolio (as pointed out by Gruber)?
Sure, that's all true, but unless Microsoft potentially infringed some of those Novell patents they wouldn't have been any use as a defensive portfolio - so MS buying into them was an implicit admission that it infringed.
Google isn't the only firm that needs a defensive patent portfolio, it's just the only big firm that needs one that doesn't already have one.
You CAN do business with MSFT/JAVA/ORCL without a defensive patent portfolio as they seem to be willing to license. APPL maybe not so much but they are explicitly calling out MSFT as part of some weird tech conspiracy theory.
You can do it but it will cost you, particularly if you're setting up a rival platform. If you have no strength in your own negotiating position then you will get screwed on the licensing fees. MSFT seems to be trying to get more per android handset in licensing than it gets per WP7 handset. Oracle is definitely after far more per Android handset than it ever got per Java handset.
No, folks aren't missing the point at all.
I think the real point here was that Google sunk its own battleship in PR terms. This is like John Kerry's 'I voted for the bill before I voted against it' line. There's something in there, but there's no way to make the case in a way that doesn't end up seeming ridiculous.
Google must really wish they'd bought Sun last year and not let it fall to Oracle.
I'll bet you any amount of money you can collateralize that you can't give me an example of an innovation since 1776 that isn't just an improvement of existing technology.
Breast implants.
Breast implants.
Big bountiful boobs already existed.