Microsoft to Google: Please Don’t Use Patents to Kill Video on the Web
blogs.technet.com
blogs.technet.com
According to reports, that is roughly the royalty percentage Microsoft is getting from Android phone sellers ($5 to $15 per phone $15/$500 = 3%).
Microsoft Wants to Ban Motorola Phones in U.S.
"Motorola is infringing our patents and we are confident that the ITC will rule in our favor," said David Howard, Microsoft's deputy general counsel for litigation.
"We are vigorously defending ourselves against Microsoft's patent attack business strategy," said Motorola in a responding statement. "We have also brought legal actions of our own in the U.S. and in Europe to address Microsoft's large scale of infringement of Motorola Mobility's patents."
He who lives by the sword...
"In legal proceedings on both sides of the Atlantic, Motorola is demanding that Microsoft take its products off the market, or else remove their standards-based ability to play video and connect wirelessly."
This is a standard move in these patent battles; the same thing happened in the various Apple/Samsung/etc. cases of the past year. I presume the threat of lost sales is meant to motivate the other party to settle quickly (i.e., pay up!).
Posted by Dave Heiner Vice President & Deputy General Counsel, Corporate Standards & Antitrust Group, Microsoft
So, Microsoft, you probably heard this a few years ago, too, but: Please don't use patents to kill an open source OS.
There will have to be some flexibility, but people can't have both a nebulous definition of FRAND licensing and be outraged when someone interprets it (or tries to enforce it) differently.
They are telling MS "leave android alone, or we make sure all of YOUR products take a hit. Worst case scenario, we create a massive shit storm, who do you think will lose more? Want to bet your company on patent trolling?"
I am happy they are going after one of the biggest bullies on the playground.
The US Justice Department said: "During the course of the division’s investigation, several of the principal competitors, including Google, Apple and Microsoft, made commitments concerning their SEP licensing policies. The division’s concerns about the potential anticompetitive use of SEPs was lessened by the clear commitments by Apple and Microsoft to license SEPs on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms, as well as their commitments not to seek injunctions in disputes involving SEPs. Google’s commitments were more ambiguous and do not provide the same direct confirmation of its SEP licensing policies." <http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/February/12-at-210.html&#....
What has Microsoft done with Nortel's patents that you would count as "patent trolling"? I am not aware of anything they have done that would meet any of the definitions here <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll>.
They made a promise about patents that they have made commitments to standards organizations about.
The conveniently fail to say anything about de facto standards that were created by their monopoly power (like FAT and VFAT). Personally, I think those patents on an ill-gotten standard are probably the most powerful in their arsenal with respect to Android.
As you sow, so shall you reap.
"For a $1,000 laptop, Motorola is demanding that Microsoft pay a royalty of $22.50 for its 50 patents on the video standard, called H.264."
Google (and thus Motorola) wants to increase the use of WebM (instead of H.264) on the web. I see this as a positive thing, even though I am not sure how to feel about the methods used here.
Still the message to Microsoft is clear: Implement WebM so that we can have the same, open-source format across the Internet. Killing H.264 is not the same as killing video on the web.
I find this doubtful; the licensing terms for H.264 put the per-unit hardware costs at around 10-20 cents depending on volume.
I'm guessing the author misunderstands what's going here: the patents most likely cover related things, but not H.264 itself, or they're not "essential patents" as per the spec.
It might also be possible that Microsoft doesn't license from the MPEG-LA, and rather licenses individual patents separately. An example of a company that claims to do this is Real, whose RealVideo is a blatant H.264 ripoff -- so they claim they license the relevant patents individually instead of the whole package.
The alternative is that Motorola has done something that would probably get them permanently kicked out of all ITU standards bodies forever. Taking part in a standards body and then breaking the agreements signed during said process is not merely illegal, but probably grounds for every other company involved beating you to death with sharp sticks.
From what I've heard, Motorola's terms are non-discriminatory - they ask for the same schedule from everyone. So then the question turns on whether Motorola's terms are "fair" and "reasonable". On that point, I suspect the debate will be endless - especially once you include the issue of "fair" and "reasonable" treatment of past infringement (both of which Microsoft and Apple have to contend with).
We also know that Motorola has taken at least one action that could be taken as discriminatory. Specifically they apparently licensed some 3G-related patents to Qualcomm including full rights for Qualcomm's customers to use those patents, then claimed to have terminated those patent rights with respect to Apple as a third-party beneficiary: <http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2012/02/apples-us-antisuit-l....
I'd rather see a short term disruption anyway if that means making an open source video codec popular for the web. I still think Google needs to make Youtube work on WebM by default, and use Flash only as a fallback, if they are serious about pushing WebM. If they do that, most video websites will start using WebM overnight (granted it reaches the necessary quality by then).
Second its unclear if WebM is patent encumbered or not. AFAIK its not yet been tested but if this current battle heats up its likely to come under fire fast.
Third you now have literally millions of mobile devices and other CE devices with built in H.264 hardware video decoders very few with built in WebM.
A lot of folks haven't cared that H.264 is patent encumbered, they pay the licensing fees and go on their way with a very tried and true codec. Until now...
It has been shipping in Android phones since Gingerbread and it also ships in Chrome (which comes directly from Google). Those are big, fat juicy targets for anyone who thinks they have a patent that can take WebM down.
No one has even tried. I wonder why? I suppose they might be laying low to get more WebM adoption and more potential damages, but how many millions of infringing instances can you want?
The fact that some of those patents happened to have a committee around them earlier (and some deals in the committee regarding future use of the patents), is a quirk of history. In all fairness, all of these patents should be licensed under FRAND terms (or better) today, or none.
In isolation it does seem reasonable. You might feel differently, however, if all your business customers using your mobile OS were either being sued by or paying bogus licensing fees to one of your competitors. Microsoft has been asking for it.