Rockstar, Patent-Holding Firm Partially Owned by Apple & Microsoft, Sues Google
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daringfireball.net
Of course, as Gruber's mocking of Android's openness has shown, he believes attempting to live up to an ideal and failing somewhat is worse than not even trying. At least when it comes to Google.
To clarify, I do believe Google is fundamentally doing their best to improve the current patent situation. Perhaps naïvely. I just wrote about the situation with the assumption that Google are evil liars to approach Gruber on his level.
Apple and Microsoft has been waging anti-android patent war for ages, suing HTC, Samsung, Barns&Noble and many other Android manufacturers.
They are publicly pro-patents and when they are failing in the marketplace are suing anyone who poses a threat to their business.
Google is publicly against patents, releases a lot of source code under Apache license that grants patent rights and, as far as I know, haven't launched an offensive patent suit (i.e. against someone who hasn't sued them first).
The Motorola lawsuits that Gruber (and quite a few anti-Google people) is so keen to quote happened years before Google acquired Motorola.
At this point I don't even understand why people expect Google to just take it and not launch offensive against Apple and Microsoft. You can be pro-peace but if someone points a gun at you and shoot, you shoot back and that's what Google should do: shoot back.
Your premise about Motorola is incorrect. Google was required to approve the patent assertions against Apple. From FOSS Patents:
>A few months after that Zeitgeist talk, in January 2012, Google authorized a Motorola Mobility lawsuit against Apple over six patents in the Southern District of Florida. The merger agreement was publicly available and absolutely unequivocal about the fact that Motorola needed Google's consent prior to bringing new IP assertions while the merger was under antitrust review.
But even if that weren't the case, there would be nothing stopping them from settling or withdrawing the case.
For entertainment value, I took a paragraph from Gruber's post and made a few substitutions:
If you want to argue that the whole budget debate stinks, and that all of
these politcal parties are abusing it, I agree. But if you want to argue that
conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers are in the wrong, and poor Democrats and
liberals are victims of one-sided abuse, I’m going to have to disagree. If
there’s a difference between Republicans and Democrats in this war, it’s
not over nobility, but rather over how well each side has played the
game. It’s looking more and more like Democrats made a strategic blunder...
The timeline here would be instructive. Microsoft and Apple sued and threatened Android OEMs first. Apple's CEO is on record as practicing 'thermonuclear war'. Steve Ballmer gleefully cheered about their patent licensing. Both companies love patents. Jobs "and booooooy have we patented it!"
Weaksauce attempt by Gruber at drawing an equivalence.
>If you want to argue that the whole patent system stinks, and that all of these tech giants are abusing it, I agree. But if you want to argue that Apple and Microsoft are in the wrong, and poor Google and their Android partners are victims of one-sided abuse, I’m going to have to disagree. If there’s a difference between Apple/Microsoft and Google in this war, it’s not over nobility, but rather over how well each side has played the game.
These companies pursue what's in their self-interest, and attempts to portray Google as being somehow above it are disingenuous, regardless of how high-minded the PR makes them seem.
However, there's a world of difference between corporations competing in the marketplace and winning by providing superior value for the customer and using a patent system pretty much everybody acknowledges is broken to have a second turn at bat after their own product strategies have failed. Until recently there was a gentleman's agreement among the big tech companies that patents weren't to be used offensively.
We all suffer when every trivial detail of any software product is open to expensive litigation.
Edit: "Playing the game" too is a terrible analogy for patents lawsuits.
>A few months after that Zeitgeist talk, in January 2012, Google authorized a Motorola Mobility lawsuit against Apple over six patents in the Southern District of Florida. The merger agreement was publicly available and absolutely unequivocal about the fact that Motorola needed Google's consent prior to bringing new IP assertions while the merger was under antitrust review.
And Motorola was the first to sue Apple. I didn't find a wiki article about Microsoft and Motorola so I don't know who started it there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Mobility_v._Apple_Inc.
Google provided the software that Apple was attacking, but was not considered to have standing to intervene. Instead, Google used its Motorola subsidiary to sue back with its own garbage patents and restore the MAD status quo.
But Apple undoubtedly attacked first. Actually Microsoft was the First Evil, but Apple was first between Google, Google's licensed manufacturers (like Samsung and Motorola), and Apple.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Inc._v._Samsung_Electroni....
In that regard, Microsoft and Apple struck first.
“In early October 2010, Motorola Mobility [which would later be bought by Google in August of 2011] filed a complaint with the ITC against Apple alleging patent infringement. The complaint allegations concerned six Motorola patents, and sought remedies of a court-ordered bar on U.S. imports of infringing products, and an injunction prohibiting Apple from importing, marketing and distributing infringing products.”
You can't have your cake and eat it too. Either Motorola is acting independently and carrying forward a battle that started prior to the Google acquisition, in which case, you have a false equivalence, or, Google is carrying out the attack, but if they are, then it is for Android as a whole, just as Google has attempted to assist other Android OEMS in past suits by asking the USPTO for re-examinations.
To suggest that this isn't about iOS vs Android vs Windows Phone is ludicrous. Steve Jobs didn't scream "Motorola is a stolen product, I'm going thermonuclear on it", he say "Android is a stolen product..." Apple's suits against practically every Android vendor, from HTC to Samsung, Motorola, Huawei, ZTE, etc is obviously part of an ecosystem war
Your suggestion is to act as if the USSR launched a missile at New York in the US, and Washington D.C. ordered California to launch a retaliatory strike, it can't possibly be because New York was attacked, and must be considered a First Strike!
My question is: why did pre-Google Motorola sue Apple, given that it hadn’t been sued by Apple?
My guess is, Motorola was headed from bankruptcy before Google rescued them, Apple had deep pockets, so they became a target.
The fact that Apple, the world's most successful company, is engaging in First Strikes, is somewhat odd. Usually it is the last refuge of a loser company searching for a way to tax competitors.
Despite the fact that Android had majority market share, Apple is still increasing it's marketshare and raking in the profits, which is another reason why it irks me.
It's like the winning football team beating up the losers after the game is over. Apple is winning, it is out-competing it's rivals. Does it really need to be engaging in morally gray legal moves?
Microsoft, we expect it to, so it's no surprise, but Apple, of whom I have a love/hate relationship, I just wish they would act better. I love their products. They're better than this. They don't need to sully themselves with this cage-fighting behavior.
I think the source is Steve Jobs’ pride, not rational business decisions. Jobs saw iPhone as something completely new, a smartphone that everyone could use – and the combination was something he felt he had invented. In the keynote where he announced iPhone, he went out of his way to point out that Apple has the multi-touch patents and that they filed for many more covering the gestures.
By that time, Google had already purchased Android Inc, but it had no actual product. Eric Schmidt was on Apple’s board so he knew about both projects. When Google did show an Android phone, it looked nothing like iPhone, with a hardware keyboard, no multi-touch, and an OS akin to Blackberry and Symbian. Apple obviously had no problem with that iteration, as Eric Schmidt remained on Apple’s board and Apple didn’t sue anyone.
It wasn’t until Google changed Android in such a way that it was meant to be used with multi-touch when shit hit the fan. Eric Schmidt was suddenly a traitor, a spy, and Google became the enemy. That’s when Schnmidt was ousted from the board and the lawsuits targeting Android started.
If Google had waited a year or two to make Android more iPhone-like, I believe Steve Jobs’ reaction would’ve been way less severe. And given that Nokia, Blackberry, and Microsoft (the mobile OS market leaders at the time) were asleep at the wheel, Google could’ve easily have competed in the market without stepping on Apple’s toes.
Alternatively, Eric Schmidt could’ve left Apple’s board as soon as he knew Apple and Google were going to compete by both making a mobile OS. He must’ve known by 2006. He also knew what Jobs was like and could’ve seen this coming.
Now, who has an incentive to launch patent lawsuits as an attempt to restrain competitors? The one whose business model is fundamentally threatened by open, free operating systems, or those who don't make any money from them? Which actors have an incentive to try and impose costs on open source? It is fundamentally not in Google's interest to ban iPhones, as they make money on iPhones just like they do the desktop Web. A commoditized mobile industry, or a competitive mobile industry is a net win for Google, only a monopoly monoculture is a loss for Google. Left to their own devices, Google could undermine iPhone by just shipping Android for free, no need for legal fights to undermine it.
Microsoft in particular had a plan to try and stop Linux when it started eating up the server-side market by launching or threatening patent IP issues, for much the same reason as the current attacks on Android. The reality is, the only recourse for proprietary vendors to go after something that is free is to use the force of government and the courts.
Which company has a founder/CEO who openly proclaimed in inflammatory rhetoric that he was going to "destroy" and go "thermonuclear"? Which company has threatened and asserted more patent attacks? You cite a single instance in which Google inherited a long running fight between Motorola Mobility and Apple, but completely ignore the fact that Apple has sued pretty much every Android vendor, and Microsoft has shaken down many. What do you call Microsoft's shakedown of B&N's Nook? You think that's morally equivalent to Motorola?
This is about as intellectually honest as the people who try to compare Fox News to CNN, or claim that the "extreme left" in Congress is just as bad as the "extreme right", despite the fact that none of the "socialists" in Congress have brought the government to a two week shutdown, or a debt crisis.
I don't call someone who abuses the system better at "playing the game", that suggests that this is a fun activity with no moral or ethical repercussions. I call someone who is better at abusing the legal system MORE immoral than someone who is doesn't do it as much.
In order words, it is not a game. Calling it one is a disingenuous attempt to paper over what is disgusting behavior and whitewash it enough that you can try to draw a moral equivalence by leveling it all out.
Yes, Google is pursuing what is in their self interest, but there is nothing immoral about releasing stuff as source for free or competing in the marketplace. It is not evil, despite the fact that Jobs tried to say it was.
What is immoral is gumming up the courts and using the force of the government to beat your competitors because you can't stop consumers from choosing other products.
You might want to rethink that statement. If Google had not bought Android and built it into the ecosystem it is now, do you think Google had made more money by now?
> It is fundamentally not in Google's interest to ban iPhones, as they make money on iPhones
Google doesn’t sell apps for iOS, but it does pay Apple to be the preferred search engine in Safari. So that line tells me that you know Google makes money on Android (the way it always does, by collecting user data to sell ads – and on ‘Android with Google’ it gets more of that data than anywhere, except perhaps Glass).
It is well known fact that Google makes far more money on mobile ads on iOS than Android.
Google's interests are for people to use the Web as much as possible, and therefore, to make it as cheap as possible to get on the web and spend all your time there. That is, Google's interests are aligned with the interests of the consumers to have downward price pressure on mobile devices.
Apple's interest is to maintain margins, it is fundamentally against the interest of consumers in that regard, and therefore, it has a large motive to restrict trade of competitors.
Competition is in the interest of consumers, and therefore these abuses of the patent system are also not in the interests of the public. Apple should stop it, and the government should reform the system.
That’s small potatoes. What I’m talking about is the data Google collects while you’re online and logged in with a Google account or using an ‘Android with Google’ device. From your geolocation to your contacts, to the websites you visit, to the searches you perform, to the documents you create in Apps, etc etc.
That is data Google can use to display targeted ads on any device that is tied to you, not only on its Google search engine, but on the majority of websites on the Internet (Google owns DoubleClick.)
The reality is, Google makes more money on AdWords through Google searches, and so the default search engine is far more important.
That’s why companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter have the market value they do. Any of those can at any time flip the switch to cash in on the user data and mindshare they’ve collected.
Apple has a very different business model. It hasn’t shown any interest in user data (past credit card information) and doesn’t even have the infrastructure to exploit it. Because Apple is so inept in web services, I don’t mind them having my information on file, while I worry about what Google does with my information even when I’m not logged into its services.
> Google doesn't make any money from Android.
Are you claiming Google puts out Android as an exercise in charity? If not, this is a non-sequitur.
> Which company has a founder/CEO who openly proclaimed in inflammatory rhetoric that he was going to "destroy" and go "thermonuclear"?
Ok, let's play this game too! Which company has a CEO who openly proclaimed "if you have something you don't want other people to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place"? Oh, hey, look, Google supports the NSA!
> shaken down
> abusing
> abusing the legal system
> Microsoft's shakedown of B&N's Nook
I thought we had discussed the usage of this rhetoric in view of your employer's antics. Don't remember? Read on!
> You think that's morally equivalent to Motorola?
Oh, you want to bring up Motorola? Well, aren't you in for a treat! Read on!
> This is about as intellectually honest as...
Oh, you want to talk intellectual honesty, do you? Well, why don't you read on to see what your employer has been up to!
> Yes, Google is pursuing what is in their self interest, but there is nothing immoral about releasing stuff as source for free or competing in the marketplace.
And there is nothing immoral about protecting your legally given IP rights. Unless, of course, you assume your definition of morality. Which oddly enough, happens to align with Google's whenever it's convenient.
> It is not evil, despite the fact that Jobs tried to say it was.
(This is an aside and actually detracts from my point, but I'm genuinely curious; did Jobs actually say that?)
>* What is immoral is gumming up the courts and using the force of the government to beat your competitors because you can't stop consumers from choosing other products.*
No, what is immoral is trampling on other people's Intellectual Property rights, ripping off their creative work without proper compensation, avoiding the extreme risks and expenses in creating a new market that they undertook, and then competing unfairly by undercutting them by dumping a product for free funded by search monopoly profits.
See? I can spin things to fit a narrative too!
And customers' choice?? Hah! Customers will choose whatever is cheaper, which is exactly why antitrust law has provisions against predatory pricing.
Wait, what's that? Google has not been sued under antitrust laws? Well, guess what, Microsoft and Apple have not been sued (successfully, at least) for abusing patents either, yet you and others here sling that accusation around here pretty freely.
But wait! Did someone say "sued for abusing patents"? (And here's the pay-off) Guess who has been sued and slapped by a federal jury with millions in damages for abusing patents!
Where did I say that? There's a difference between giving something away for free and altruistic charity. Apple gave away OSX, are you suggesting it's an exercise in charity? Android is a strategic moat for Google's main business, it is not a profit center.
On Steve Jobs, http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-jobs-says-googles-dont-...
"We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. ... This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.”
The implication in Job's quote is that Google was wrong, unethical, or evil to "enter the phone business", as if Apple has some god given right to own the phone business?
The rest of your post comes down to a disagreement on basic principles for which we will never agree. I have opposed software patents for decades, far longer than I've been a Google employee (indeed, I was attracted to Google because of its stance on software freedom) From your profile and your posts, you seem to have a vested interest in patents, possibly even a lawyer or an employee of IP vultures. That's fine, as Upton Sinclair said "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" My salary doesn't depend on open source or being against software patents, I have hated them since I began programming software in the 80s. I stand against them on principle, and I don't believe in intellectual property in general.
All the other attempted utilitarian justifications are bullshit. They might hold for pharmaceuticals, or other industries where it may take 10 years to R&D a drug, but the idea that software patents represent extreme risks and expenses in development is ludicrous, and anyone who has written more than a few thousand lines of code knows that. The VC justification is bullshit too, I founded, raised funding, and sold two startup companies without patents.
The concept of predatory pricing makes no sense for something owned by the public (open source). I would argue that if companies battling it out is creating and giving away knowledge or information to be owned by the public and freely copied, then it is a good for society and is exactly the kind of thing we want to be encouraging.
Your vested interest is in protecting corporate interests against the public it seems. If Google stood against the public interest in this regard, I would be the first to raise hell. It just happens my employer, for the most part, shares the same view I've always held.
Do you consider Chromium browser open source even if the majority of the apps you use on the Web everyday aren't?
Android being open source has obviously benefited the public. Just ask Cyanogen.
Hmm, I read that as a precursor to your later arguments.
> "We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. ... This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.”
Ahh, OK, a bit indirect, but I can see where you're coming from.
> The rest of your post comes down to a disagreement on basic principles for which we will never agree.
But that's exactly my point! You and many people here pass judgement on things based on their own principles as if those were a given! I try to present an alternate perspective because it's hard to come by around here.
Now, even if asserting opinions as fact is taken as a reality of forum life and overlooked, there's another thing irks me: when it comes to patents, those opinions are almost always poorly informed, and my agenda really is to spread more awareness. This is also why I try to support my points with studies instead of regurgitating talking points put out by tech media outlets.
> I have opposed software patents for decades, far longer than I've been a Google employee (indeed, I was attracted to Google because of its stance on software freedom)
Yes, Google certainly is one of the stronger proponents of free software. But you should ask how much of that is because it conveniently aligns with their business strategy (see: Spolsky's "commoditize your complements.") And again, it would be useful to keep Google's antics with Motorola in mind. I do not say this to disenfranchise you with Google -- it is indeed an excellent company to work for -- but more from the perspective that an employers' stance on IP should not affect an employee's opinions. The employer is acting in their own best interests. So should the employee.
> possibly even a lawyer or an employee of IP vultures.
Heh, no, just a geek with a very strong interest in IP. I did previously work with a very IP-focused company, which is where I picked up my patent background, but this was the proverbial little guy that had been ripped off by the big guys, almost went under, and only managed to prevail through patents. Thus I have a very different view point on these things.
> All the other attempted utilitarian justifications are bullshit. They might hold for pharmaceuticals, or other industries where it may take 10 years to R&D a drug, but the idea that software patents represent extreme risks and expenses in development is ludicrous, and anyone who has written more than a few thousand lines of code knows that.
Any 12 year old can write a few thousand lines of code. Which thousand lines of code to write to provide the most value is something that only comes with a lot more insight.
Ask yourself: how much do software companies invest in R&D? See that war for talent out there? How much does it cost to retain the best talent? How much does the free food and health insurance and perks cost in addition to the 6-figure salaries? What are Google's biggest expenses? Would you call that a trivial investment? Now think about what that investment gets you, and whether that's something that a company can reasonably want to protect.
> The VC justification is bullshit too, I founded, raised funding, and sold two startup companies without patents.
Just because you did it that way doesn't mean it's the best way. I posted studies showing that it's easier to get financing if you have patents, and companies with patents are more likely to have successful exits. Sure, your experience is valid, but that does not mean others should deny any advantages they can rightfully take.
> The concept of predatory pricing makes no sense for something owned by the public (open source).
Nit-pick, but most open source is not really owned by the public. Especially not Android. Not when it takes an Amazon to fork Android.
> I would argue that if companies battling it out is creating and giving away knowledge or information to be owned by the public and freely copied, then it is a good for society and is exactly the kind of thing we want to be encouraging.
Couple of things:
1) If it's knowledge you created all by yourself, you can give it away all you want. But if it's simply a rehashing of knowledge somebody else created, not so much. This is essentially the purpose of IP, which you're free to disagree with, but society in general has decided to support it.
2) If giving away knowledge was such a great thing, why doesn't Google open source all it's IP? Think about where you draw the lines.
> Your vested interest is in protecting corporate interests against the public it seems.
Oh no, very much no. I don't have any vested interests yet, but if I do, they will be very much in my own interest rather than any corporation or any public. That may seem selfish, but I have seen with my own eyes time and again how the public and corporations will take what they can get and give back nothing if they can get away with it.
Here's software R&D: Spending 4 years on Phd research looking at new speech recognition algorithms and making fundamental improvements in the field. Here's what's not R&D: Developing a product in 6-12 months, and then asking your developers retroactively to go submit patents on anything in there that they can find: drop down menus, clicking styles, transparent overlays, extracting links from text.
Ask yourself this, do you think Pinterest deserves a patent on "Pin Board" UI? Do you think a Y-Combinator startup that goes from idea to launch in 3 months, and then submits a whole slew of patents on whatever they manage to cobble together in that time is R&D?
Some patents are essentially the equivalent of domain name squatting. Nothing more than a land grab for as many claims as possible.
I've been through the patent process before. Asked by lawyers to drum up as many claims as possible with as wide applicability as possible, send through the USPTO, wash, rinse, repeat, until you walk away with as many viable claims as possible. It's not really about what you actually developed, it's about trying to own as much of the intellectual landscape as possible. I find that essentially dishonest and I don't think it is good for innovation.
Neither Google nor Apple's biggest expenses are R&D. Apple's R&D expenses in fact have been historically low. Microsoft spend 12% on R&D last year. Apple, only 3%. IBM and Intel also essentially outspent Apple, as I bet Samsung has too. Consider that Apple relies on fundamental semiconductor advances in screens, fabs, memory, Flash memory, et al that are mostly done by other companies. These companies invest massive R&D efforts into fabs, advanced lithography, production lines. Isn't it kind of sad that Apple's $150 billion isn't going into fundamental advanced in new technology, but into stock buy back, dividends, and offshore investments?
You know, if Apple were to invest in say, the kind of stuff IBM or HP is doing with trying to develop new batteries or fundamentally new storage mediums, I'd be like, sure, that was a 10 year investment, they may deserve some protection.
But I just can't get behind a patent on using regular expressions to parse phone numbers or URLs out of text and turn them into clickable links, which is a basic job interview question.
If this succeeds it will set a very dangerous and chilling precedent for the development of any new technology going forward. Anyone that claims to value innovation and opportunity for new ideas should condemn it.
Also, what evidence is there that Google is still committed to making Android open source even since Andy Rubin left the project?
Finally, I don't know enough about Andy Rubin's relationship with Apple, but can somebody who does comment on this? http://www.fosspatents.com/2011/09/apple-to-itc-andy-rubin-g...
https://android.googlesource.com/platform/art/+/kitkat-relea...
And, even if Android were completely closed, it would still occupy the higher moral ground since Google did not instigate this war and would be happy to see it end.
Lodsys is _almost_ the antihero here. They are just being exploitative which is dumb and obnoxious. If only they were explicitly attacking Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle's ecosystems. Dishing out the abuse towards their small innocent customers. Using the system these companies have expanded and propped up to really hurt them. And say, "Hey, this is what we are doing. Maybe you should fix this Congress."
Android is shipping on more units than any other OS and Google is going to win if things continue this way based on current trends. They are probably not far away from getting Android to a similar level of polish as iOS within the next few years. There's only so much you can improve on in terms of the OS software before you hit the point of diminishing returns.
At this point, the trends are clear, Google will win the mobile OS war. There is really no other likely outcome at this point unless Apple does something drastic.
In business, it is pretty much expected that public companies will act in the best interest of its own stakeholders, so this lawsuit was just something that had to happen. You can't blame Apple or Microsoft for this. This is what you do as a business to protect your products and removing your barriers to entry, or you fall off the mobile rocket ship.
Also, honest question, but why do people get so upset over this blog? I just looked up John Gruber on Wikipedia and his full time job is maintaining a blog to write about Apple products, with a history of being an "Apple Apologist". We're we expecting him to write something different?
For anyone still in doubt whether Gruber is actively paid by Apple (and possibly others) to deliver viral marketing - here you go.
Sometimes Gruber gets so wrapped up in his own B.S. that he starts defending the scummy actions of Apple - sad.