Microsoft's FUD goes mobile | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft's FUD goes mobile

theregister.co.uk

37 pointsyanw32 comments

This isn't FUD; this is just business. They didn't even sue HTC. If MSFT infringed on a patent of Google's, you can bet Google would be taking the exact same approach.

It's just the register. They seem to have a wee bit of an anti-Microsoft bias.

Perhaps not FUD, but I think not releasing what exactly is infringing is suspicious to many.

I've not noticed that Google is particularly litigious: perhaps as the company gets older it will enter the ethos.

I can understand software patents when your competition poaches your staff, but it seems a little unjustified years later because you happened for have an idea first.

Imagine if Novell acted this way.

Well, I think software patents are inherently broken anyway. But I can't fault a company for trying to leverage that type of thing if the system allows it.

You most certainly can. Just because something is allowed by "the system" does not mean it is OK. A dick move is just that, even if it isn't against the rules.

Businesses are chartered to maximize shareholder value. One may not like dealing with a business because of their policies or the quality of their products, but it's hard for me to see how anthropomorphizing companies and complaining about how "evil" they are [not that you're doing that, but it's so often done] does anything but obscure that it is in fact the system that allows, and often requires, "dickish" behavior.

I notice some similar thinking in this respect about politicians, too: in both cases people complain about them and wish for a day when we'd just have "good" ones. (And often lament a non-existent past where they were good.) Companies are intended to always act in their interests and politicians almost universally (and since time immemorial) act in whatever way they think best helps their reelection because if either entity didn't generally act in this manner, they'd cease to exist and be replaced by an instance that would. The system selects for companies and politicians that act in their interests. Understanding and internalizing this fundamental fact about these entities' nature seems to me key to helping us effect the change we want to see.

So, either anthropomorphizing companies is bad, or its ok. In your first paragraph you criticize people who do so, but the second is about how companies act in their own self interest.

Second, the only reason a company does something is the people there make decisions to do so. These people are perfectly capable of being evil and being dicks, and frequently are. Since they are the decision-makers and act on the company's behalf, and cause others to do so as well, just assume people saying 'company x is evil' is shorthand for 'the decision makers and people who carry out actions in the name of company x are creating evil by this coordinated action'.

Third, I accept that most institutions act in their own self interest, this really doesn't require too much deep insight. I have been voting with my dollar and my cooperation for a long time.

Finally: I was not suggesting anything other than what you said, I was disagreeing with the "can't fault a company for...". This is totally doable. It is a dick move, and may or may not have long term ramifications. Self interest is different than lazy "greediest move available now".

Perhaps. Many people believe there is a place for ethics in both business and politics. Without ethics and principles everything must be regulated or tested in law. Loose regulation and reliance on just market-forces does not always result in the best outcome long term.

Banks for instance advocated the loosening of regulation to act just as you suggest. Now many blame them for breaking western economies.

They reached an agreement over standing patents with one of their business partners. That's hardly a dick move. Now, if they'd sued a 50 person startup into oblivion over a questionable set of patents, that's a different story. But that's not what they did.

"Perhaps not FUD, but I think not releasing what exactly is infringing is suspicious to many"

Why? Think about it from the patent licensee's point of view. You are paying a patent owner money for permission to practice one or more of their patents.

Why would you want to tell your competitors what those patents are? So they can look at them and make sure they work around them, and so don't end up having to license them, and so get to offer their competing products at a lower cost than yours?

If those patents could be circumvented for less than you paid for them, you made a lousy deal. If they could be licensed for less than the cost of circumventing them, your competitors made a bad deal.

Anyway, enabling FUD is bad for everyone. Microsoft's threats over Linux (therefore Android) decrease the value for everyone in this ecosystem.

That could be a little inaccurate. In this case you create a product using and open-source product and an industry player comes along saying Linux infringes on it's patent portfolio heavily. But this infringement was unproven: Microsoft may not have a case.

This looks like extortion--- where product makers rather than face down Microsoft, accept that they must pay. It it likely that HTC does not think it has too much choice as part of the market for their phone is windows mobile.

Many patents could be claimed on any device built now, you don't see IBM, Novell and Oracle lining up.

Well... Guess I will not buy an HTC phone. I'll not support a company that gives in to empty threats or blackmail.

To be fair, it's not like there were an awful lot of people for whom "giving in to empty threats or blackmail" is a point to be considered when purchasing a mobile phone, so if they changed their patent licencing practices based on your opinion, they would be "giving in to empty threats or blackmail" as well.

Your reasoning is flawed. My threat would only be empty if I were to buy an HTC handset. Since I won't, it's not an empty threat. I intend to follow through.

It's, however, not a substantial threat, unless growing a spine becomes a requirement for selling mobile phones. This, unfortunately, is not going to happen anytime soon. Yet, I feel I should take a stand, as principles matter.

Too bad. I would respect them more if they bought Palm. That would probably make them own a lot of patents both Apple and Microsoft cross-license.

You might not have many purchasing options yet. This is Microsoft's next big cash cow.

The lawyer in question wrote a whole book about how the future for Microsoft was licensing patents.

Microsoft's future is to be a patent troll?

By definition, Microsoft is not a patent troll.

At least not for the time they have any relevant product. That should happen within the next 15 years or so.

GP mentioned Microsoft's future. IMHO, that's quite credible.

Good luck trying to buy a phone that doesn't include patented technology licensed from someone else.

I support companies that license technologies that have valid patents. What HTC did just lent credit to Microsoft's FUD about their never disclosed patents Linux allegedly infringes.

Want to bet Microsoft will not disclose the patents? If they did, they would have to defend them in court or see them be completely avoided in one or two minor releases.

Those patents are worthless unless they want to make FUD out of them. The HTC license was, perhaps, in exchange for lower Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7 licenses. Don't forget HTC sells tons of the former and expects to sell tons of the latter.

I imagine lots of the "settlements" they make involve such tricks.

You are simultaneously complaining that they don't disclose the patent numbers AND that the patents are worthless or invalid. How can you know the latter without knowing the former?

Your theory that they don't tell the patent numbers because then it would be easy to work around them makes no sense. If the patents were that easy to work around them, why would Amazon, Samsung, and LG have all licensed them? They all have the resources to put the workarounds in Linux and contribute them back upstream, thus solving the problem once and for all for everyone.

> If the patents were that easy to work around them, why would Amazon, Samsung, and LG have all licensed them?

If they are not easy to circumvent, why not disclose them, putting to rest all doubt against their validity?

One plausible reason is that, once disclosed, the patents would lose their FUD value. Even if all of them could be circumvented by kernel 2.8, every user running previous, infringing, versions would still be liable until their kernels got upgraded, something that's not always possible. It would require a huge investment to upgrade and certify all servers and appliances.

In what other scenario does not disclosing the infringing patents make sense?

My bet is they don't want to court-test those patents.

If being pressured over a patent is an empty threat, then you'd be surprised how many companies you'd not be able to deal with. Most companies (even Microsoft themselves) have just settled with trolls because its not worth it to fight.

It's one thing to settle with a small troll. It's a whole different game when you settle with Microsoft over their "patents that Linux infringes" secret list.

HTC is enabling FUD.

My take: Microsoft can't make a mobile OS that doesn't suck, so they want to leech income from those who can, using the power of Extremely Broad Software Patents.

I don't see this as a story about new and interesting alliances of enemies. I see it as a story about substituting litigation for innovation.

Actually, Microsoft does make a mobile OS that "doesn't suck", at least in the sense that it's a mobile OS that HTC wants to sell on their own devices.

This is just price negotiation inside an existing business relationship, nothing more. It's true that MS used this trick in the 90's in ways that were anticompetitive (Dell paying MS for every computer sold meant that they had no incentive to bundle other operating systems), but that's not the situation here.

Might offer some additional insight into this: http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/28/microsoft-htc-android-apple...

not a lot of details to go on here, there's no telling what the issue actually is.

This might be the case:

- HTC agrees to sell MS phones only

- They also agree to pay MS when they start selling other brands

- They start selling other brands

- They pay MS as agreed

I'm inclined to agree with this theory. Ironically, much of this article is also FUD. i.e.

The deal could be seen as a veiled threat to other handset makers choosing Android - if they don't have such an agreement in place then presumably Microsoft is at liberty to sue them for patent infringement?

theregister fails to take into consideration that MS is a longstanding partner of HTC's and that HTC was making WM phones almost exclusively until the last year or two. It's very likely that this is the result of an agreement made long ago.

Or perhaps, Microsoft and HTC enter into deal to help combat Apple.

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