Motorola wins patent suit against Apple in Germany, iPhone/iPad to be banned | Hacker News Reader

Motorola wins patent suit against Apple in Germany, iPhone/iPad to be banned

thenextweb.com

163 pointstilt60 comments

It does feel that Apple is reaping the whirlwind here.

For a long time the major players have all held loaded guns pointed at each other's heads, with nobody willing to fire a shot because they knew it would be more trouble than it was worth.

And then Apple decided to take the first shot. The big question now, is whether the politicians will let this drag out, costing everyone a fortune, or step in and call an end to it by changing the patent system.

I think German politicians have bigger issues to worry about right now than a patent dispute between Apple and Motorola, something about Greece, Italy, and Spain.

This court case is just a proxy war fought by Motorola as a client company of Google.

So... Motorola was only fighting this on Google's behalf (prior to the purchase)? They were fighting this because it was in their own best interests. Just because their interests align with Google's doesn't make it a 'proxy war.'

It's usually in the proxies interest to fight the war anyway. Vietnam was a proxy war for the US even though Vietnam was fighting it long before the US got involved.

Google gets to fuck with Apple and if they lose they just roll up the company with out exposing the real profits to judgement. Moto bears the risk, Google reaps the rewards, classic proxy war.

Either way I don't think German politicians are ready to intervene.

The politicians don't need to do anything, at least not in response to this specifically.

If it's as bad as you say (and it's not, this is one ruling in one case and not a final one) then the companies will simply stop and put down their guns. They're not run by stupid people, when the cost of legal actions and settlements outweighs the possible benefits, they'll revert to the previous position - only the most outrageous violations will be followed up.

This specific situation - the recent upsurge in actions (but NOT the more general issues with patent) is something that the market can sort out.

The real problem with patents isn't multibillion dollar companies slugging it out, they've got the legal muscle and licensing budgets to be OK, it's with the small players who can't or won't develop products out of fear that they're going to violate some patent they're not even aware of owned by some multi-billion dollar organisation who'll squash them without thinking.

"The market" will only sort this out properly if it is efficient. There's too much uncertainty for that to be the case. Put another way, how is a company supposed to come up with an accurate expected value of suing/defending? There are so many unknown factors that have significant impact on the outcome.

Eventually, once a lot of those unknowns become accurately estimable, then yes the market can solve these problems. But there's a giant cost associated with waiting around for that.

How is that more uncertain than anything in business? How many will my product sell? How fast? What's going to happen to materials prices? What are my competitors going to do?

By that logic the market couldn't work for 98% of products.

Legal action I'd suggest is certainly no harder to predict than that and probably easier.

Patents are anti-freemarket - they are restrictions on what one can actually do to their own property. They are government granted monopolies, that's about as anti-freemarket as you can get.

I'm enjoying the schadenfreude too, but no: I think that's the wrong way to look at this. That Apple "shot first" doesn't make Motorola's suit any less bogus. If anything we're closer to a sane resolution now just because of the court mess in Europe.

The goal here has to be achieving a sane and stable status quo for "obvious" IP law in consumer hardware; not punishing Apple for being jerks about things and upsetting the previous status quo.

Oh, I don't like this outcome. I'd like to get rid of software patents entirely, and limit the time period and scope of hardware patents a lot more.

My guess is that many politicians just see this as the system working.

What on earth are you talking about? Nokia sued Apple first after it became clear they weren't going to be able to compete with the things Apple was doing. Nokia was able to successfully extort money from Apple. Apple was taught that this is how you play the game. If people want the system to change, they need to lobby for it, but please remember your history. Apple didn't start this and everyone is doing it. Who is playing offense and who is playing defense depends on how well you remember the timeline and which "team" you side with.

Do you have a reference for that? I can't remember who was first anymore but I did seem to think it was Apple.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=896889

>Apple was taught that this is how you play the game.

This implies that Apple was some naive child entering the Big Bad World of Business. I doubt they were unaware of how to play the game.

>What on earth are you talking about? Nokia sued Apple first after it became clear they weren't going to be able to compete with the things Apple was doing.

That's not exactly how it happened -- every other major player pays Nokia licensing fees. Apple refused to purchase a license on the terms Nokia offered (mostly, Nokia wanted a cross-licensing agreement for Apple UI patents. Nokia actually cares about patents, and tries to not infringe on them.), so Nokia sued them to force it.

" Who is playing offense and who is playing defense depends on how well you remember the timeline and which "team" you side with."

At this level - All the major players try and license on FRAND terms first and foremost - limits your risk, and keeps your legal bills down - but Nokia was asking for more than Apple was willing to play - so they go to court.

All the players are looking at this from a Game Theoretic position, and, at the end of the day, Patent holders _have_ to send some of their negotiations to court, if only to make it clear their FRAND values would be held up.

Apple is somewhat unique, in that they aren't as keen on getting license value for their patents as their competitors are - and, FRAND values on a design patent is a lot more "mushy" than a radio chip function.

FRAND means "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair,_reasonable,_and_non-discr...

Yes, those are absolutely the first words that cross my mind when I read about the patent lawsuit of the week...

> " Who is playing offense and who is playing defense depends on how well you remember the timeline and which "team" you side with."

Not saying Nokia is the good guy here -- just pointing out that the fact that they sued is unrelated to the fact they couldn't compete in smartphones. Based on the history of Nokia, if they had never tried to compete with Apple, they still would have demanded the licensing costs. Simply because they care about patents and consider them one of their normal sources of revenue.

Apple was taught that this is how you play the game.

I thought Apple was 'think different' and 'we play the game our own way'?

Well, would you rather see companies in this market stop doing this pointless crap, or see Apple suffer? The answer to this question will dictate whether you think this turn of events is a good thing or not.

The article title is inaccuarate. To quote the body:

"which could see an injunction placed on iPhones and iPads."

I would bet money on the iPhone/iPad not being banned. How many times have we seen this now? Product gets 'banned', company appeals, ban is lifted. World continues to turn.

Plus they usually get a stay during the appeal anyway, so the ban is never actually effected.

The other thing is that in Germany if you enforce an injunction and it's later overturned, you're liable for damages.

So the question might be how confident are Motorola that they might want to line them up for damages equating to iPhone / iPad Christmas sales?

As ever Florian Mueller is better on this than most of the regular news sources.

http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/12/motorola-mobility-wi...

Seriously, I would take Florian Mueller's opinions with a grain of salt.

curiosity: why is that?

He is known to be opinionated.

He's a patent lobbyist. Who exactly finances his operation is in part unclear (he seems to work for Microsoft on one project). He does not want to disclose his income sources. Some people feel that he's highly biased against Google etc.

FM is generally well informed, but may have a hidden agenda, you have to be awake when reading his opinions...

My main beef with his persona is that many news reporters call him an "expert" and publish his opinion as if were facts set in stone.

I've read many of his pieces and I am 100% sure that he's a shill.

That didn't solve my curiosity.

Check out his antics on LWN sometime. He is biased out the ass (at times outright being a lobbyist) and quite unpleasant to boot. Many of his "tactics" reek of bullying, such as insisting that people who he disagrees with reveal their personal details.

See this discussion for one relatively tame example of why people intensely dislike the guy: http://lwn.net/Articles/437650/

For extra fun, in this discussion he seems to be entertaining himself by attacking PJ's gender.

> So the question might be how confident are Motorola that they might want to line them up for damages equating to iPhone / iPad Christmas sales?

And, if anything, i'd expect Apple Germany's Christmas sales to go up. Better get your iDevice now before they're forced to withdraw it from market!

(Or, erm, just buy it from a legit source in a neighbouring country.)

Even if Apple loses on appeal, what do you want to bet they'll settle the case rather than just allowing the injunction to go into effect?

Yeah - this is how it works, they appeal the injunction and get a stay. If they can't win their, then they settle.

Why are patents related to a wireless standard that one is required to use to interoperate with the networks not available for licensing?

How in the world is anyone supposed to even develop a cellular modem without infringing on these patents? Isn't there some licensing body like the one for MPEG that you can go to and get a blanket license to all of the tech?

As I understand it, Apple believes Motorola should be required to license these patents under FRAND (Fair, Reasonable, And Non-Discrimanatory) terms due to their importance in a fundamental standard. It even said this in the article:

> Apple tried to license the patent under FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory) terms but Motorola was again able to convince the court that if Apple was judged to have infringed, the damages involved would total more than the FRAND rates that were suggested.

What I don't understand, however, is Motorola's argument. If Motorola was supposed to have licensed this patent under FRAND terms to begin with, then why does it possibly matter how much the "damages involved" total?

Ars Technica (http://bit.ly/rxK9jR) has much clearer coverage of this article than TheNextWeb does:

"Motorola approached Apple in 2007, after the launch of the original iPhone, to license this and other standards essential patents for FRAND terms. "We have been negotiating with Apple and offering them reasonable licensing terms and conditions since 2007," Scott Offer, senior vice president and general counsel of Motorola Mobility, said in a statement e-mailed to Ars.

Apple apparently didn't consider the terms very fair...Apple apparently made an offer to license the patent on FRAND terms going forward. But the matter was complicated by the fact that Apple's agreement included a clause that would allow it to try and have the patent invalidated if Motorola tried to seek damages for past infringement over and above the agreed FRAND rate."

Basically, Motorola offered it on FRAND terms, Apple rejected it, and came back with a new offer that was on FRAND terms but with the corollary that if Motorola tried to sue Apple for any infringement they had already done their patent would be invalid.

They are available to licensing. Motorola offered to license them to Apple under FRAND terms and Apple refused (said the terms weren't good enough) and used them without a license.

This is not the first time Apple has been sued for this - it seems to be a common occurrence for them. People offer them licenses for the FRAND patents they're using under FRAND terms, Apple denies them, and then when they get sued they say "But these licenses are FRAND! This doesn't make sense!"

That is from the article directly ... clearly that you are saying is not the case.

This is just as bad for users as Apple's own patent shenanigans. Nobody "wins" these things but the lawyers.

It's nice to see Apple getting slammed against their cheeks as well, but in general this just points out how degenerate computer business has become. And that's a lot sadder than Apple's karmic rebound.

One man, one company, one device in Germany? Remember those Vic Gundotra shot's at Google I/O ? "Draconian future, a future where one man, one company, one device, one carrier would be our only choice.” “Not The Future We Want.” Now, when Motorola (Google) succesfully banned iPhones in Germany, someone should ask Vic, what is he gonna do about it. If Vic stands behind his words and is not a whiny-shitty-marketing-puppy, I expect Google to do something. And soon.

Motorola doesn't belong to Google yet, the acquisition hasn't been approved yet so there is not much Vic could do. Second, didn't Motorola sue Apple as a defensive move because Apple was suing them? In that case, do you suggest Motorola should stay idle and let Apple sue them and ban their products? In what world would a company allow that?

I should be happy, but I rather wish all the patent nonsense would go away. It makes everyone involved look bad.

I wonder what the "tax" on products I buy from Apple or Google's partners are by all these shenagens are. Do I pay $.10, $1, $10 of my iPad 2 price to help fund all this nonsense?

It seems like competing for sales is old hat, now the strategy is to throw patent tantrums. This just comes off as a bummer for the consumer.

Sensationalist title, inaccurate and begging for extra clicks.

I'm not surprised to see this from a journalist, nor am I surprised to see this from Nokia. Nokia's offerings have been near non-existent since they moved from Symbian to WP7 development. If anything, this is a plus for Microsoft, who I'm sure would've been happy to fund this (if they did not).

Let me guess:

Motorola abusing a patent for an underlying radio standard and preventing Apple from using standardized radio technology: Totally legit.

Apple complaining about design and UI elements? APPLE IS THE MOST EVIL, LITIGIOUS COMPANY IN THE WORLD.

This kills me every time.

Can't wait for the next round of lawsuits against Apple, in which disingenuous tech companies sue Apple with patents they bought wholesale off a patent troll or shifted around amongst themselves as if they were nothing more than useful assets in a political game.

It makes it all that more hilarious when Apple sues using patents with Steve Jobs name on it.

One has to wonder how many CEO's at those other companies have their names on the patents they're suing over.

Or if their companies even had anything to do with the innovation the patent protects...

Here's a cute, interactive visualization of these lawsuits: http://bl.ocks.org/1153292 (might be a few months out of date)

I presume that by Motorola they mean to say Google, right?

The Motorola acquisition has not been approved yet. And I believe they are actually prohibited from coordinating efforts until that happens.

Love them or hate them, this ruling isn't exactly a good thing for anyone except Motorola. This one ruling, even if Apple loses appeal too, won't change the way Apple operates. This will only hurt consumers in Germany. Like it or not, people love the iPhone and iPad and there's a huge number of people who would prefer those products over anything else. Poor German consumers. You can say the same for Samsung in the US too and I'd agree (but I would also say far less people would shed a tear for not being able to buy a Samsung phone or tablet. My opinions are just that, however, opinions)

Pernicious falsehoods in HN mobile IP discussions:

(1) Apple is the only company that sues anyone.

(2) Apple was the first company to start suing.

(3) Whatever negative happens to Apple: well they deserve it for being meanies.

(4) Whatever negative happens to Android: miscarriage of justice that just shows how broken the system is.

I have to say that reading HN does not give me the impression that its posters tend to be anti-Apple.

Not really what I was saying. What I'm saying is that the same zombie falsehoods are repeated in every thread. Even worse, falsehoods are rewarded with upvotes because, more and more, bias trumps accuracy.

It becomes tiresome to correct them over and over again only to see that once again the highest voted comment is based on the falsehood that "Apple is reaping the whirlwind" because "they [took] the first shot."

And inasmuch as you can generalize about a diverse community it's not a great leap to go from the observation that these factually inaccurate comments are often the highest upvoted to say that when it comes to IP Apple is commonly treated here as the big bad.

This is despite the facts that:

(1) Apple is consistently the most innovative company and IP is supposed to incent and reward innovation.

(2) Apple has paid out more for patent infringement then all their innocent lamb competitors (put together?).

Apple is consistently the most innovative company

What does that even mean? You've got three unprovable terms in there: consistently (What does it mean to be consistently innovative? Wouldn't Apple's copying of Android's notifications system contradict this?), most (What metric are you using to measure innovation that gives the highest number to Apple?), and innovative (How do you define innovation in this context? Patents filed (bogus)? Profit margins (not correlated)? Intensity of reality distortion? Lines of code?).

"Apple has paid out more for patent infringement then all their innocent lamb competitors (put together?"

If they are "innocent lambs", why in the world would you expect them to be paying out for patent infringement?

Saw a chick on the train today with book 12 on patent law (can't remember if it was Germant or EU). It was about 7 cm thick, and the pages were real thin. Bureaucrats (the EU fuckers don't even pay tax), lawyers and politicians are just taking the piss now. I sure hope that is what the 99% are fighting against, and not the right for businesses and individuals to trade freely amongst themselves.

It is a wonder anything related to commerce can happen at all in well Germany at least

Apple is staying in Germany in my opinion. I could not see otherwise.

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