Microsoft won't stop forcing companies to pay for its bogus Android patents
zdnet.com
zdnet.com
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Corp._v._TomTom_In....
> Samsung alone paid Microsoft a billion bucks to license its Android patents.
So like, why didn't Samsung take them to court?
It's also worth noting that MicroSoft started looking for license payments while Samsung was still in court with Apple of patent issues. It's very possible they didn't want another large lawsuit.
The bigger problem (for a large company) is the uncertainty caused by litigation. It's a distraction to the core business and can tie-up attempts to improve or expand on features accused in the litigation, not to mention it can spook investors.
To repeat Don Draper in the Mad Men pilot (s01e01)
> The Federal Trade Commission and "Reader's Digest" have done you a favor. They've let you know that any ad that brings up the concept of health and cigarettes together, well, it just makes people think of cancer.
http://goodinaroom.com/wp-content/uploads/Mad-Men-pilot-scri...
My thinking here is if I were in charge of all of Samsung, I wouldn't mind a $15 per device cost of doing business as long as I was reasonably sure that my competitors had to pay the same sum as well. If I were in charge of Samsung, my concern would be that Microsoft would play favorites with competitors like htc.
Please keep in mind that there are no facts here. just my guesses.
Samsung simply stopped paying Microsoft the royalties after the Nokia purchase (Samsung claimed it was a breach of the agreement). Microsoft filed a suite, but after negotiations, the issue was settled[1] under confidential terms. Since then, Samsung now bundles Microsoft's software on its Android devices - feel free to speculate on the direction the payments might be going.
1.http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/microsoft-and-samsung...
The AOSP license and 3rd party notifications do not mention Microsoft and the patents listed in Chinese doc are like vague in the usual patent-esque way.
But in any case i don't really see the issue here, if MSFT gets royalties from these patents it would be irresponsible (to their shareholders, and employees) for them to ditch them, none of these patents claims actually seem to be aimed at Google or the AOSP project so it looks like the core Android OS is not really affected by this.
Google owns countless patents and Apple just might be the biggest patent troll in history and none of them seem to receive even remotely the same amount of scrutiny.
Heck the first apple iPhone GUI related suit against Samsung was field before the first iPhone was even on the market.
http://9to5mac.com/2011/10/25/slide-to-unlock-patented/
But the point is, it is a very trivial way of interacting with a touchscreen. It is, in fact, one of the few ways one can interact with a touchscreen.
I don't get how people can argue stuff like this should even be covered by patents. What's the rationale ?
Did Apple spend billions in R&D to develop this feature it now needs a mechanism to recoup it's investment ? I suppose they wouldn't "invent" swipe to unlock if it wasn't for the patent so they needed extra incentives to make it a viable investment ?
The fact that you can get a patent for something trivial and inconsequential like this shows how flawed the system is IMO.
In my mind there is no universe in which Apple dosen't implement swipe to unlock just because it's not patentable - it's just abusing a flawed system (can't blame them for it - they didn't make the rules)
So yeah, on the surface one can easily state "they both have slide to unlock" but in order to discount Apple's patent you need to show that there exists prior art for the specific claims Apple made in its patent. The Neonode is not prior art for those claims.
Well, CAFC thinks that Neonode makes the claims of the Slide to unlock patent obvious:
> We reverse the judgment of infringement and no invalidity because the asserted claim of the ’721 patent would have been obvious in light of Neonode and Plaisant.
From http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-or...
Page 28
> Apple asserted claim 8 of the ’721 patent
> 8. The device of claim 7, further comprising instructions
> to display visual cues to communicate a direction of
> movement of the unlock image required to unlock the device.
I don't know what are you arguing right now
> Your original post said that Neonode is not prior art for
> the claim asserted.
That I was unaware that Neonode was found to be prior art for a single claim (claim 8) doesn't invalidate my original point that there are many claims in Apple's patent for which Neonode doesn't look to be prior art. Finding one claim to be obvious and have prior art does not invalidate the patent as a whole; the other claims remain. From Wikipedia[0]:
> If the independent claim is determined to be invalid,
> however, a dependent claim may nevertheless survive, and
> may still be broad enough to bar competitors from
> valuable commercial territory.
> ... but in order to discount Apple's patent you need to
> show that there exists prior art for the specific claims
> Apple made in its patent.
> Neonode makes the claims of the Slide to unlock patent obvious
> I don't know what are you arguing right now
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_claim#Basic_types_and_c...
A mediaeval church door bolt. Or whatever.
Doing the same thing but "on a computer" shouldn't allow a patent.
To the contrary, I think it's quite a clever implementation. If somehow inventions like this did not qualify for patent protection, then very little would. Which is a fine argument if you just hate all patents, but if you actually read and understand the slide-to-unlock patent, as far as software patents go, it's not a bad one.
Some specific claims have been found to have prior art, but the patent as a whole is not invalid. And certainly not because of door bolts.
Big tech companies sue each other all the time over all sorts of stupid things. Everybody is suing everybody all the time and it's absurd that they have to play that game, but that's not even close to the bottom of the barrel of patent insanity. Don't mistake the handful of high-profile cases that bubble to the top of your RSS feeds (or whatever) as being a meaningful sample of what is actually going on in the world, because the reality is so much worse than that.
Think about it. Microsoft is asking for royalties for making devices that work with Windows. How crazy is that? Imagine if Google charged accessory makers for hooking into Android devices. I don't care if others do this sort of thing, too. It's just wrong.
It should be an anti-trust issue, especially when you have a dominating OS like Windows. What are other companies going to do - make mobile devices that don't work with Windows?
You don't need to support FAT to allow transfer of files between your your Windows PC and the phone standards that abstract the file system like MTP and PTP exist for this very own reason.
If you are as a phone maker want to enable users to mount their local phone storage as a fully writable file system cheaply you just format the SDCard using FAT and pay royalties.
If you don't you can still easily bypass the FAT patent issue by creating your own abstraction layer which may or maynot require the user to use specialized software and drivers (BB manager/itune/kies etc.).
That said for the majority of users MTP and PTP are more than sufficient I have an iPhone now and I do not miss the mount-SD card feature one bit if I'm honest even without using iTunes on a non-jailbroken device.
I can still plugin the phone and transfer files from the camera which is pretty much the only bloodything I could do with it anyhow and for this Apple does not need to support FAR nor pay MSFT a dime.
No, it was adopted in order to have Windows compability, which you need given the Windows desktop monopoly and since Windows refuses to support any filesystem it won't get royalties on.
FAT is actually terrible filesystem. It's only advantage is "works with Windows".
For SD-cards, it is actually mandatory to use FAT (exFAT for SDXC). It's part of the spec.
MTP/PTP is a non-functioning mess.
Also MSFT didn't force anyone to adopt FAT32 and exFAT for SDHC and SDXC it's not even part of the SD association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SD_Association
If there was a better FS out there that met all the requirements for SD cards don't you think it would've been adopted?
Because the last thing I think all of those guys wanted is to pay MSFT royalty fees, however the alternative could've been even more expensive.
> Also MSFT didn't force anyone to adopt FAT32 and exFAT for SDHC and SDXC it's not even part of the SD association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SD_Association
> If there was a better FS out there that met all the requirements for SD cards don't you think it would've been adopted?
They need to allow users to plug their SD cards into their Windows machine without it being wiped. That requires using FAT. Considering the fact that most Android distributions use far more modern Linux filesystems (ext, xfs, etc), I wouldn't say that the reason they use FAT is because it's "the best FS out there". In all honesty, you can't come close to ZFS.
Not to mention that Windows has poisoned the UEFI spec by requiring that your UEFI boot partition be formatted with FAT. However, as it turns out, this means that they had to give a patent grant to anyone who implements UEFI-based booting (which is why the vfat Linux kernel code is still there).
No, it would not. It is dependent on Microsoft's willingness to ship IFS with Windows. And why would they do that, to lose their leverage?
No, common user is not going install third-party IFS module. He might not even able to do so (work computers, etc).
Those guys are SD card producers; they don't implement the FAT filesystem themselves, and therefore AFAIK don't have to pay the tax.
The patents are for the LFN extension, and they are completely trivial and bogus.
The wiki page says patent terms are 20 years in the U.S. and FAT32 was introduced in August 1996.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Term_of_patent_in_the_United_S...
Why would you face scrutiny for holding patents?
That is not actually true about nuclear weapons; they require regular maintenance. And they are like any other military technology, they get outdated and their designs have to be constantly refreshed.
If a country doesn't maintain their nuclear arsenal, there's a very good chance that they might not work when they need it to. This happened to much of Russia's inventory. This, of course, gets factored into geopolitical strategy.
http://images.mofcom.gov.cn/pep/201404/20140408143159274.doc...
"Automatic Re-Authentication"
"Reducing Power Consumption in a Networked Battery-Operated Device Using Sensors"
"Browser Navigation for Devices With a Limited Input System"
Actively enforcing patents like these hurts Microsoft's relationship with developers, hardware manufacturers, the open source community etc.
On the other side, there is likely another group of people in MS saying "hey guys, if we give up this massive guaranteed cash flow we could receive an impossible-to-predict-or-measure amount of goodwill from ill-defined groups of hypothetical people who might all just hate us anyway no matter what we do, and even if it does make them like us more we're not sure if it will really make a difference in the long run."
Now, I would be squarely in the latter group, because I think it's the right thing to do and is consistent with the kind of company that MS appears to be trying to transform itself into, but I've gotta think that that's a very tough case to argue to anyone who is actually in a position to make that call and is therefore held responsible for the outcome. I would try to make a much more convincing argument than the strawman I presented, but since it's all about intangibles, someone with an opposing viewpoint could probably make just as convincing of a case by framing my intangibles as that strawman, and there's not a whole lot anyone could say to refute it.
It's a local maximum seen throughout the industry- I think there is a growing realization outside of the usual niches (open source advocates, HN readers, etc.) that software patents are doing more harm than good, but in the individual isolated cases it still comes down to people arguing internally that an organization should give up a guaranteed revenue stream in exchange for theoretical goodwill that may or may not actually benefit the company in any tangible way. Lots of people hate stupid patents but patent holders would rather change the system for everyone, than go out on a limb and make a sacrifice like that with no guarantee that their competitors would follow suit. I don't envy anyone trying to fight the good fight in that environment.
This is exactly what I mean. Them opening up the patents wouldn't change your bias against their products (justified or otherwise isn't relevant) like you just described, making it a business decision with very, very limited gains and billions in losses.
By bias I meant that you flat out said that Windows and a few other MS products aren't worth the money and don't understand why anybody would use it. Now sure, it's possible that after careful consideration you decided in a completely unbiased manner that the products you listed aren't worth their cost under any circumstances but I'm sure you'll agree how that might sound incredibly biased to a casual observer.
edit: well except sharepoint like you said. That thing is just bad and I've no problem admitting to a bias against it.
They're clearly trying to change their ways, but every now and then (i.e. patent crap) some of the old regime shines through. It shows that the internal mentality hasn't changed as much as they like to put on.
They need to walk the walk, which they're not doing. :(
Continuing that logic, it would be irresponsible not to defend this patent's revenue in court. Irresponsible not to use the most advantageous court for that (i.e. East Texas). Irresponsible to campaign in such a way that might invalidate that patent as it would deprive them of a valuable asset. Irresponsible not to reinvest some of the revenue these parent's generate into lobbyists to protect that revenue stream and asset.
So responsibly to investors again results in a tragedy of the commons. This time in patent litigation and legislation
In other words, don't hate the player; hate the game.
If you play the game because you have to while working to destroy it, that is one thing. If you play the game and lobby against the destruction of the game, you are the problem.
Why would Samsung do this if Google wasn't leveraging it's patent portfolio?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/01/27/samgsung-googl...
http://androidandme.com/2014/01/news/samsung-may-be-toning-d...
So it's okay to shake people down over bogus patent claims, as long as your shareholders get their take?
As I said elsewhere in this thread, I really hate how people hurry to come up with excuses for corporations and their representatives acting like jerks. They can take responsibility for their actions just like the rest of us.
> Google owns countless patents and Apple just might be the biggest patent troll in history and none of them seem to receive even remotely the same amount of scrutiny.
Are you serious? Did you not notice the endless derisive coverage about slide-to-unlock, "rounded corners," etc, etc? Apple deserves and gets plenty of shit for its patent trolling. This article, on the other hand, is the first thing I've personally heard about Microsoft patents in years--I'm sure there's been other coverage, but it's certainly not as comprehensive as Apple's.
Recently Windows 10 showing Tomb Raider advertisements. Windows 7 upgrading to 10 without permission.
This article claims Microsoft is embracing open source in a way that is not just to extend and distinguish.
In my limited knowledge it looks like adaptation. They tried to extinguish; didn't work They tried to extend and extinguish. Now they have to embrace.
Not so fun fact. "Microsoft paid a guy named Ken Brown to write a book saying Linus stole Linux from my MINIX 1 system." - Tanenbaum
It feels a lot like an abusive relationship people don't know how to walk away from.
I think this headline sums it up best: http://www.infoworld.com/article/3042699/open-source-tools/m...
Don't get me wrong, more free software is always a good thing. But I still remember the Microsoft of old and no, I don't accept that they've changed their ways. It's just the next step in their line of business decisions.
Really all that's changed is they got rid of the chair throwing, vitriolic anti-Linux CEO and replaced him with a politician who knows how to work a crowd.
Samsung has enough money to challenge them, but they know they would fail, the patents are valid, as long as the US law supports the software patents in the current form.
That won't fly without access to Google's proprietary apps and app store. Microsoft will need to bury this hatchet before they could get that licensing deal.
They have an SDK for this approach now, with Xamarin. Don't be surprised if they trade the patent revenue for another shot at phones.
Microsoft could use AOSP or Cyanogen. But is there any known case where Google has blocked a would-be Android phone maker? And if it blocked Microsoft, how would that stand up to DoJ scrutiny?
None of these companies have, to my knowledge, ever used these patents against individuals in the open source community but they sure do love to wield them with each other...
There have been many, many cases of patent trolls doing exactly that. The reason this is relevant to these companies is that patent trolls can buy these patents from a company and then make their money's worth by suing every Tom, Dick and Harry they want. Sure, $CompanyX might not actually be the one suing, but they are enabling this sort of abuse of an already broken system.
That being said, I know from personal experience that many Sony Xperia devices support exFAT, which, to me, doesn't sound like they're showing the middle finger to Microsoft at all.
Source?
MS doesn't stand a chance when it comes to me (and I imagine others) trusting them. Too much BS for too many years.
"So why, with all this, am I certain that Microsoft can't be trusted?"
If I want to say "So why, with all this, are many open-source fans and developers certain that Microsoft can't be trusted?", then I would want source to back me up. This is how I want to earn "Trust" :)
This is a myth that has been debunked many, many times.
Is that supposed to make it better?
I really hate how people hurry to come up with excuses for corporations and their representatives acting like jerks. They can take responsibility for their actions just like the rest of us.
EDIT: I was referring to Linux Mint, not Linux in general. I would never call a Slackware user a hipster ;-)
Software patents in the form the US does them didn't exist in Europe, but see this (hint: the US again):
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//...
It's hard to see the difference between the first iPhones and Galaxy phones, in terms of home screen and hardware. You can't tell them apart at first glance. A clear rip-off. The patents Apple used to sue them were often trivial but the fact it was nothing but an iClone was obvious.
Apparently that's the only thing you can do to a competitor that copies without innovating. I can imagine that now Google had a few firsts in Android (interactive notifications for example) these patents will be swapped more and more and Microsoft gets less leverage. That's why Motorola didn't have to pay, they were extremely important advancing mobile technology and have their own chest of patents as a result.
The obviousness bar should be raised much higher so that if a lone undergraduate could arrive at a solution it is not a patentable solution. If we are going to entertain software patents then they should be used to cover major investments, like it works in pharmaceutical industry. Most patents are not of this kind, and most things in iPhone are just straightforward progression of prior art.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_man_on_the_Clapham_omnibus
Copying is how we advance civilization. Every great idea was built on the work of others, or "Standing on the shoulders of Giants" as Newton would say.
The current framework for IP protection isn't working. There is no evidence that it is accelerating the pace of innovation.
We need to shift our viewpoint and realize that copying is a good thing.