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Comment by jivatmanx | Hacker News Reader

Intervening in one case for an iconic American company is protectionism, not free trade. That would have entailed reforming the patent system for everyone.

This is ominous, what if this is remembered as the equivalent of Smoot-Hawley? Patents are a hell of a lot more complex than tariffs... and at least the ITC is trying to do international coordination here, and Obama has just blatantly undermined them.

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Taking legal action against FRAND abuse is hardly unique to the US.

http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/12/european-commission-to-is...

See also Mueller on this veto; while I often disagree with him, I tend to agree on this issue:

http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/08/obama-administration-veto...

The problem I have with this argument, is, isn't the point of every technological advance to become widespread and Standards-Essential? If we're going to disallow them, why have patents at all? For "Look-And-Feel" patents?

Because even strong software patents often have alternatives, and weak ones are easy to find an alternative to, decreasing their value, but once a standard protocol requires their use, the patent holder can jack up the price. As an extreme example, consider the exFAT patents: there are many file systems superior to exFAT that have no need for whatever bits of functionality Microsoft patented, but because Windows speaks exFAT as one of few alternatives, some companies have licensed them. Not exactly a standard, but the same idea.

The ITC specifically considered FRAND, so interesting that you or the perpetually wrong troll Mueller decide that it is abuse.

Well, evidently the ITC "considered" FRAND inaccurately, as their decision conflicted with both, the Obama Administration and the European Commission. (Not to mention the opinions of jurists such as Judge Posner.) You could cry "protectionism" on this veto, but what excuse could you make for the EC's actions?

Bizarre how you group in multiple completely different actions and pretend that they're one. And the Obama Administration didn't make a statement about FRAND or the correctness of the ITC's judgment -- they simply decided that they'd rather not have an American company's products blocked.

Completely different actions with precisely the same underlyng issue: abuse of standards essential patents. Bizarre how you do not notice this.

And this is not a new issue, and not just restricted to the smartphone patent wars. The same criticisms were made and similar outrage was outpoured in the semiconductor industry when Rambus tried to pull similar shenanigans. [1]

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambus#Lawsuits

Apple was offered the same terms as everyone else but they "decided"that this wasn't fair and demanded special treatment.

Apple is the one not following the FRAND spirit here.

I can't begin to imagine what the ITC will do having been completely undermined by Obama. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple suffers from some international retaliation for this.

Obama doesn't fully understand how commerce works.

No, it's that many of us don't agree with how commerce and government actually work together.

Care to expand?

Sure: government will always be two-faced with respect to "free" markets, interfering where it suits their and/or their friends/benefactors' interests, or not, as the case may be. It has been this way for centuries, Adam Smith just added to the lexicon of rationales.

Well, in what way was Apple the government's friend or benefactor?

Honestly, is that a serious question? Do you have no concept of what I'm describing such that I'm required to list these things out?

Pretty much all Apple hardware is made in China, which makes the company an instrument of foreign policy. That's one aspect.

Dude, you're being more than a little bit of a dick. I'm ignorant of government policy and politics in general, and it's only recently that I've begun rectifying that.

Yes, it was a simple, straightforward query for information that I lack. And you hardly answered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_interventionism

You know what. I'm outta here for awhile. It's people like you that make me depressed to read HN or try to be involved. The guidelines even say "if you wouldn't say it to their face, then don't say it." Yet you were such an asshole to me right there without even an apology. That would've been okay if I had received an actual answer to my question, but instead I got a context-free link to a Wikipedia article with no way to interpret the complexities of how it relates to the issue at hand. The result is an unhelpful, unhealthy, negative state of mind. And that would be okay if I actually learned something from the experience. But the only thing I've learned from this is that you personally attack and belittle anyone who doesn't know the same things you know.

I'm pretty sure that's not the case, but I appreciate your perspective.

Congress seems to have explicitly preferred this approach, however. They could've set up a system with uniform rules and a mandatory process that the president can't overrule, as is commonly done with other areas like environmental rules. The president does have some power over the EPA, but can't arbitrarily instruct the EPA to drop rules simply because he disagrees with the outcome of the rulemaking process. But here Congress said that if the President disagrees with any ruling of the IPC "for policy reasons", he need merely notify the ITC and the ruling will be voided. That seems to indicate Congress wanted case-by-case review of ITC determinations for policy conformance. Why would they write that into the law? My guess is precisely to allow national economic interests to take priority over the rules on a case-by-case basis.

Congress, in most cases of late, prefers to give more arbitrary authority to the Executive branch rather than actually craft specific and meaningful rules.

Sounds like they built a recipe for patronage with this law. By creating a system such as what you describe, it's ripe for businesses to $$ convince $$ the right politicians that their success is in the best interest of the country.

I've gotta ask if you understand anything about the case, or are you just trying to speak generally.

Regardless. Apple's genius isn't patentable anyway.

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