Motorola Scores Patent Wins Over Microsoft, Apple 158
tlhIngan writes "This week is Motorola's lucky week; they've won twice in two separate patent suits. First, an ITC judge has ruled that Microsoft's Xbox 360 has violated 4 of 5 patents related to h.264. This is just a preliminary ruling (PDF) and both Microsoft and Motorola will face an ITC panel later this year. In the other case, the ITC judge has ruled Apple violates a 3G patent, one that a German court ruled that Apple didn't violate earlier this year. "
If you cant kick it (Score:3, Insightful)
The world is ill-served by "imaginary Property"..
h.264 (Score:3, Insightful)
...violated 4 of 5 patents related to h.264
So this is the next standard for video on the web they're talking about?
Re:Software Patent Reform Anyone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hello, Obama? Anyone home? There's a campaign donation in it for you from a few big tech luminaries, I'm pretty sure.
Sadly, that's not correct... most "big tech luminaries" happily use patents as cudgels to prevent little guys from entering their staked-out territories, or to push out anyone who gets in their way.
I'm not seeing any big tech corporation wanting to remove what is arguably becoming their biggest (and still legal) weapon to fend off or tame the competition.
After all, look at how much money Microsoft has managed to score from 'selling' Android to the manufacturers so far...
Re:COOL! (Score:1, Insightful)
Motorola refusing to license FRAND patents under FRAND terms does no one any good. Hopefully Google won't fall into the same vein. The terms require that a patent be offered, and it should NOT require a company to offer up it's own IP in order to obtain use of a FRAND patent.
Re:Gotta love the consistency (Score:5, Insightful)
How can anyone hope to abide by copyright rules when even the courts can't sort out the mess!
Because as it turns out, German and American courts abide by different laws.
Re:COOL! (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe Microsoft and Apple should not have started the war by suing Android manufacturers.
Re:Google Wins! (Score:0, Insightful)
Cheering for Google winning patent lawsuits while criticizing competitors for trying to win patent lawsuits is an insane double standard. Has the discussion really been reduced to such blind fanboyism? You're portraying Google for being a champion of open standards even as they ship the closed source Flash plugin in Chrome and support MP3 and AAC audio playback, which are just as patent-encumbered as H.264.
What Google is brilliant at is being no different from their competitors yet convincing techies to side with them through populist rhetoric about openness. If Google was actually open, you'd be able to download the source code for the search engine.
Re:Google Wins! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's amazing how much the moral and ethical standards of Microsoft and Apple have converged, and it is not because Microsoft improved.
Re:So now Moto won't suck? (Score:5, Insightful)
Today Iridium is a healthy business with nearly half a million subscribers. Motorola may have got that one wrong, but not very far wrong. You know who really deserves to crater as a company for bad management? Microsoft. Kept going only by illegal monopoly control of PC manufacturers and evil software lock-in of the kind that got IBM sued nearly into oblivion in the eighties.
Re:what does "fair and reasonable terms" mean? (Score:2, Insightful)
FRAND is really about non-discrimination. I can't force vastly different terms on a company just because I don't want to compete against them , for example. Usually, FRAND has some sort of patent cross-licensing involved with a small payment attached. The benefit to the original patent holder is that they gain security against being sued by their competitors. It is supposed to ensure that companies compete on products and not with lawyers over competing patents. I think the status quo has changed so rapidly with smartphones, tablets, etc. that the system has just broken down. If you are a company like Apple or Microsoft, without a lot of relevant IP to cross-license, then should you pay more than companies that have cross-licensed? If so, how much more? That is what many of these cases are about.
Re:Google Wins! (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft shaking down Android manufacturers with its most probably bogus software patents says that you are incorrect about Microsoft improving at all.
Re:what does "fair and reasonable terms" mean? (Score:4, Insightful)
Usually, FRAND has some sort of patent cross-licensing involved with a small payment attached. The benefit to the original patent holder is that they gain security against being sued by their competitors.
Oh, how that smells like cartel.
Re:Google Wins! (Score:2, Insightful)
It wasn't Google who picked a fight.
Excuse me? This is about H.264, not phones. H.264 is used in HD video cameras, the blu-ray format and as an output format to from video editors. Various devices have H.264 hardware decoders such as smartphones, set top boxes and tablets. Those decoders cannot support WebM and would have to be done in software on the CPU.
Google picked a fight with me and other consumers around the globe with this action. I hope google goes bankrupt because I don't appreciate being ass raped by a large advertiser that have no respect for consumer privacy and rights.