Google: Apple, Microsoft Waging War on Android

[ralfthedog]

[citation][nom]jackbling[/nom]This whole IP patent nonsense is getting tiresome; One of two things need to be done:1.) Throw the IP/software functionality patent systems out the window and let companies compete with end products. The market will decide which is better, and this will foster innovation in the private sector.2.) Rewrite the entire system with revised required criteria (i.e. must have working model within 6 months and show plans to sell or release as open source, or you cannot renew the patent(or variants); rework review process to prevent fluff patents and generalizations, etc.)All in all, the entire system is ludicrous; Anyone who thinks you should be able to patent an update button, or teleporter is smoking rocks. People waste government/taxpayer money filing these ridiculous fluff patents generated from "invention companies" with no intention of ever making a product. The review process doesn't work.[/citation]

Six months? When you are truly pushing the limits on a technology, not just copying, it can take more than five years to put a product on the market.

 

[Guest]

And how exactly would "jointly" purchasing those patents have "not" helped protect Android from lawsuits? Joint owner is still "owner", and therefore still covered by the patent, "protection" wise and all...

Here's how it works:

Microsoft comes in with their huge patent collection and asserts that Google is infringing on X number of their patents. Google comes back and says, "But wait! We just bought a bunch of patents" and lays them on the table stating that Microsoft is infringing on them. Normally at this point, the two companies come to some sort of truce. But Google then remembers "Oh crap, we purchased these patents jointly with Microsoft.... they own them too! We're screwed."

Why would Microsoft be scared by patents they jointly own?

 

[LORD_ORION]

So what's that, 250,000 permutations of button push patents?

They really need to stop allowing people to patent software UI processes. They are all obvious and as such should be under copyright, not patent laws.

Buying up patents to F up the use of a UI in an OS is NOT COMPETITION.

 

[scuba dave]

[citation][nom]aecce181[/nom]And how exactly would "jointly" purchasing those patents have "not" helped protect Android from lawsuits? Joint owner is still "owner", and therefore still covered by the patent, "protection" wise and all...Here's how it works:Microsoft comes in with their huge patent collection and asserts that Google is infringing on X number of their patents. Google comes back and says, "But wait! We just bought a bunch of patents" and lays them on the table stating that Microsoft is infringing on them. Normally at this point, the two companies come to some sort of truce. But Google then remembers "Oh crap, we purchased these patents jointly with Microsoft.... they own them too! We're screwed."Why would Microsoft be scared by patents they jointly own?[/citation]

Right, I agree on that part.. Google couldn't use them to defend against MSFT, however they would have been useful against Apple(which is realistically, and unfortunately,more likely to throw lawsuit after lawsuit at Google). In this case, a limited protection > no protection would have been the better route to go.. and instead they decided to take an un-needed risk and lost everything they were hoping to gain by saying no. I wish it didn't work that way.. Honestly something needs to change, but whining and crying after you lose because decided to play ball your way, is kinda flawed.

Apple, is obviously, the biggest competitor to Android, and WP7 is still quite the joke atm. Not to mention there are still plenty of other patents that Google could(and probably is) trying to silently acquire concurrently..

This simply reeks, to me, of a PR attack because Google's decision to risk it in the auction didn't pan out the way they thought it would.

 

[datawrecker]

[citation][nom]scuba dave[/nom]And how exactly would "jointly" purchasing those patents have "not" helped protect Android from lawsuits? Joint owner is still "owner", and therefore still covered by the patent, "protection" wise and all...[/citation]

The "joint" purchasing entailed Google still paying Microsoft licensing for the patents they helped pay for under terms that Microsoft set in place.

 

[zak_the_great]

companies spend lots of money and time to get some thing developed ( hardware or Software). Patents can be used to get their monew they invested in from their products. If others want to develop a similar product they need to spend money and come out with a way to desing it diffrently than theor competition. This is called inovation, not by have to limit the original companay from exercising their patent, as in the latter case there is no inovation just copying and getting the product sold cheaply since they did not have to pay for development of the idea.

 

[slabbo]

there needs to be a Fight Club intervention vs the Patent Office.

 

[gogogadgetliver]

[citation][nom]scuba dave[/nom]And how exactly would "jointly" purchasing those patents have "not" helped protect Android from lawsuits? Joint owner is still "owner", and therefore still covered by the patent, "protection" wise and all...[/citation]

Google is saying that they cannot use patents as a shield or a club against a co-owner of those patents. Google is in violation of unrelated patents and to defent their actions they want to own something they can counter sue with.

Android is a great OS but some of that greatness comes from the fact they flat out stole some ideas from others. This is now coming to haunt Google and they keep taking the low-road which is making it worse.

 

[leadpoop]

The whole patent system is flawed. Why innovate when you can litigate?

 

[gogogadgetliver]

You can't litigate unless you've innovated.

 

[scuba dave]

[citation][nom]datawrecker[/nom]The "joint" purchasing entailed Google still paying Microsoft licensing for the patents they helped pay for under terms that Microsoft set in place.[/citation]

No.. Because that wouldn't make them an owner, but a regular licensed user with a substantial down-payment. The purchase would have given a usage license to all the purchasing parties, however, that wouldn't protect Google from any patents Microsoft had sole ownership of, which is what Google says it needs. However, as they declined, microsoft asked Apple, and they accepted, and now Apple and Microsoft have even more "ammunition" they can fire at Google. If Google had accepted, they would have had ammo to defend against Apple, however they would have still needed something else for defense against Microsoft. So instead of having defense against one, they effectively chose having defense against none. Personally, I think it's hilarious that they start crying after the auction resulted in them losing.. It's basically like a blackjack player crying after they lose a hand.. They knew there was a risk.. One they lost.. And so now they are playing the government/PR game to try and get the "hand that was dealt" overturned. Cry me a river Google.

 

[STravis]

[citation][nom]zak_the_great[/nom]companies spend lots of money and time to get some thing developed ( hardware or Software). Patents can be used to get their monew they invested in from their products. If others want to develop a similar product they need to spend money and come out with a way to desing it diffrently than theor competition. This is called inovation, not by have to limit the original companay from exercising their patent, as in the latter case there is no inovation just copying and getting the product sold cheaply since they did not have to pay for development of the idea.[/citation]


That's how things are supposed to work - unfortunately in most cases the patent office is overwhelmed and patents are allowed through from stupid shit... Let's not even go into the whole software as patentable because that's just laughable.

 

[Guest]

@scuba dave

MS did not need Apple's involvement if this was a fair game, MS would have bid what they believe a reasonable amount of money for the patent, what occurred was MS (along with Apple and Oracle) probably concluded there was no way in hell they could out bid Google fairly so got together to form an unholy alliance who's bid was well outside the reasonable range of any one single company, if you weren't paying attention Google actually put in a fair bid designed to outbid any one single company, they didn't low ball this, they didn't risk anything but there is no way in hell they going to have the ability to outbid an alliance of MS, Apple and Oracle

 

[Camikazi]

[citation][nom]gogogadgetliver[/nom]You can't litigate unless you've innovated.[/citation]
It doesn't take a lot of innovation to get vague, broad sweeping patents granted, or to get common sense, would have happened as part of the evolutionary process of software patents. Those types of patents are what is killing innovation, real patents help, these lawyer ammo patents don't do anything to help.

 

[dalethepcman]

Google couldn't use them to defend against MSFT, however they would have been useful against Apple

Yes because Apple didn't buy these patents, so they can protect themselves..... oh wait, apple did buy them.

Android is a great OS but some of that greatness comes from the fact they flat out stole some ideas from others.

Yes like a pull down notification bar, over the air updates, photo sharing, remote application installs, and cloud syncing. Android stole all of these from IOS 5 when they went forward in time and saw them, then reverse engineered them and released them years earlier in android 2.1. The ideas android stole were.....

 

[K-zon]

You'd have to sit and say that in terms of interest with use of the products that they would be in interst of use for them according to their products but of it at least is to say of their products are products of interest for use or sale at least on some ideas and to say that at least at anytime for parts of litigation of legitimacy may finds it place more part then none of course.

Of course though at least to say at anytime this may actual include consumer interest at time despite either one part of interest for one of its own. But of it at least though to say of it that there is an own interest for other then consumers would be probably that of what makes up the interest. Too still say its right is subjective and perspective probably none the less but probably no more.

But of it the most though are say end results and of anything at anytime usually is the idea of loss no where. How this is and what is is probably that of two different things of course but of it at least there is some sort of progres within the idea on it.

At times of it at least though would say may lack of ideas of interest to say again at least but of it though might not actually be, so of it is rather anything is probably of use for what is of interest and rather it is a "single" placed interest actually of it or not even with say the few or many.

 

[shrapnel_indie]

[citation][nom]gogogadgetliver[/nom]You can't litigate unless you've innovated.[/citation]

Very UNTRUE. Buy someone's existing patent, and then you don't have to innovate at all to litigate.

 

[kartu]

[citation][nom]gogogadgetliver[/nom]Android is a great OS but some of that greatness comes from the fact they flat out stole some ideas from others. This is now coming to haunt Google and they keep taking the low-road which is making it worse.[/citation]
They've used some stuff from Sun, yes.
But they didn't get anything from Microsoft or Apple.
The only reason those 2 are able to sue and win, is a broken patent system.
Go try to license "swipe to unlock on mobile device" in EU.

 

[vaguedreams]

[citation][nom]scuba dave[/nom]And how exactly would "jointly" purchasing those patents have "not" helped protect Android from lawsuits? Joint owner is still "owner", and therefore still covered by the patent, "protection" wise and all...[/citation]

Let me quote the article real quick

"If you think about it, it's obvious why we turned down Microsoft’s offer. Microsoft's objective has been to keep from Google and Android device-makers any patents that might be used to defend against their attacks."

While co-owning these patents may help stave off certain legal issues, it may work against google on other un-related patents. Also, and more importantly, this does absolutely nothing for handset makers that use android. HTC, Samsung, LG, Motorola, etc... They would still be on the hook for lawsuits, and as a co-owner Google would be hard pressed to defend them. Even if they (goog) turned away royalties, MS and Apple would still expect to get paid. Thus causing a serious hurting on the android os, as well has the handset manufacturers.

 

[techguy378]

Apple and Oracle need to get their heads out of their asses. A patent refers to a technology that its owner invented. Apple and Oracle didn't invent a single piece of technology in Android. Not one. Apple and Oracle should be legally required to pay Google for the time they've made Google waste in court.