Motorola Seeks Ban On Macs, iPads, and iPhones 446
bonch writes "Google-owned Motorola is asking the International Trade Commission to ban every Apple device that uses iMessage, based on a patent issued in 2006 for 'a system for providing continuity between messaging clients.' Motorola also claims that banning Macs and iPhones won't have an impact on U.S. consumers. They say, 'With so many participants in the highly competitive Wireless communication, portable music, and computer market, it is unlikely that consumers would experience much of an impact if the requested exclusion orders were obtained.' The ITC has yet to make a decision."
Google, Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Stop this bullshit and direct your lawyers to lobby to change the laws on software patents instead. Don't you think your money would be better spent on innovation?
What goes around comes around... (Score:3, Insightful)
Good to see Apple getting patent trolled. Sorry to all of the Apple fans out there but I hate today's Apple more than I hated '90s Microsoft.
Re:Google, Apple (Score:4, Insightful)
Right back at you Apple. (Score:2, Insightful)
HAHAHHA.
That's a great retort to Apples actions. IT's what Apple has asked for in theitr lawsuit(to shut down everyone else), and as a side note, I suspect this would change patent law.
Like who again? (Score:3, Insightful)
Companies like Apple feel like the only way to maintain is to stifle the competition not to keep innovating.
And yet now we find it is Google doing so, not Apple.
Both are equally guilty of bullshit.
Soon,... very soon... (Score:4, Insightful)
the whole patent system is going to come crashing down. The way these companies are going, it will not take much longer before people start realizing the current system is no longer viable. Maybe a decade or so, but not much more.
Re:Of course they won't.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is becoming MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). Maybe that's the point. Maybe Motorolla is trying to teach Apple how to play Tic-Tac-Toe. Number of players: 0
Re:What goes around comes around... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, but they fired the first shot, now they are going to get hit by everything the other teams can find.
Re:Like who again? (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe the consensus is that Google acquired Motorola largely for its patents so it could counter-sue Apple and anybody else who has been aggressively suing Android products as a more or less defensive measure. If Google won't show that it'll fight back, Apple and anybody else who wants to will sue Android, or Android manufacturers, into oblivion.
Re:Of course they won't.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say it's more of a way to get Apple to lay off suing Android device manufacturers for patent violation. If you have enough ammo in your patent war chest, no one's going to take pot shots at you. Certainly worked for IBM, anyways.
I don't know if this move is at least in a little part an attempt to get Apple to back off on suing Samsung (is that bit about an Apple device ban not effecting US consumers lifted from Apple v Samsung comments?), but it might do so anyways.
Re:Like who again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Like who again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless Google fights back, Apple will topple them. Pacifism is neat in theory, but it won't get you far in the business world. Google is guilty of nothing but self defense. If Apple stops trying to get Motorola phones banned and Google continues, THEN you can say they are guilty.
Pledge to Obama (Score:3, Insightful)
Please Mr. Obama, when you are re-elected, please make all software patents invalid because they clearly don't work.
Re:Soon,... very soon... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What goes around comes around... (Score:4, Insightful)
Until software patents are simply gone ... then this would be the correct response, I think. "Okay, Apple, if you want to start suing based on these silly patents, we'll sue you, too."
Who started it *does* matter. Bully picks a fight in school? I would not stand there and be beaten to pulp. I would fight back. It *does* matter who started it, because actions based on unprovoked aggression vs. those same actions in self defense are significantly different.
Apple asked for it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Like who again? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am tired of this constant meme although I am not a big fan of Google.
What Google is doing is perfectly right from a moral, legal and commercial perspective. Apple started suing Android makers first(though Motorola beat them to the punch by a few weeks with a lawsuit and request for a declaration that it didn't infringe certain Apple patents after talks broke down). If Apple gets an injunction against Motorola for their silly patents over multitouch etc., Motorola will have to either stop selling handsets or pay $30 per phone which will kill their phones. Why should they not retaliate so that they have a chance of a negotiated settlement if that happens?
Also, big companies like Apple must be taught a lesson that if you start litigating, you should expect no mercy from the companies you're suing exploiting the exact same legal loopholes. If that's not done, other companies(except NPEs) will not think twice before suing competitors. Why should Google unilaterally disarm again? Just because they're your favorite company is for once on the receiving end of the same shit it is flinging all over everyone else? Motorola is not suing Samsung, HTC etc. here, but Apple is. Go figure out why
Re:Like who again? (Score:2, Insightful)
Looking at the history of the companies, can you present a alternative that would allow Google to compete against Apple when Apple keeps stifling innovation through abusing the patent system? The last 5 years have been full of Apple abusing patents to stifle other companies.
Any in case, there motivation doesn't matter because this is win-win long term for the consumer.
The are successful, and a lot of people start looking at the patent system.
They loose, and future similar suits will be weaker.
Re:Of course they won't.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Christ, can't we just start shooting all the lawyers and get this over with? The whole thing is an increasingly mad dash to innovation armageddon. I think no patent system at all would be better than the absurdities of this.
Re:Of course they won't.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Of course they won't.. (Score:2, Insightful)
How about a nice game of chess?
Not Equivalent (Score:1, Insightful)
Apple hasn't sued all Android device makers, nor has it sued Google. They are absolutely *not* trying to stop all Android devices. Apple sued one handset maker over specific products they felt were copying too closely (rather than just borrowing or being inspired-by.) People have speculated that it was mostly about warning off competitors from that sort of copying - not about damages or banning products, though those things indirectly serve the real purpose.
Don't kid yourself about Google... they are as guilty as can be of abusing the patent system. They lost all credible claims of "innocent party" in the patent wars the moment they bought Motorola and failed to put a stop to the patent abuse. You get sued? Sure, go ahead and countersue with everything you've got. If Google wants to grant broad patent protection to its Android partners go ahead and do that. But there is nothing open or good about what they are doing.
P.S. Apple is paying a per-handset fee to Nokia over patents. Apple and Microsoft have cross-license agreements. Apple isn't neither unique nor extraordinary in the patent lawsuit game. I'm not sure why they have to be held to a higher standard on everything... people don't claim they will stop buying Samsung phones because they sued LG, or how much they hate Nokia because they sued Apple (one of the first shots-across-the-bow actually).
Re:Not complaining about Google fighting back (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess that's one of the risks if your company chooses to focus on creating and pushing absolutely identical clones of one product, instead of providing a range of devices with different options and hardware from competing manufacturers...it's an all the eggs = one basket kinda t'ing. If your device violates a patent...all your devices are likely to violate the same patent in the same way.
I don't understand your argument. Samsung has lots of products, not just absolutely identical clones of the iPhone and iPad.
Umm...sorry, I should have been more clear. I'm saying that Apple has a product line with absolutely no diversity allowed wherever possible, so naturally if their product violates one patent, the rest of their products are very likely to violate it as well. That's why Google can cry patent infringement across the entirety of the Appleverse, while Apple could only pick on a single product line from a particular manufacturer (more or less).
Re:Soon,... very soon... (Score:5, Insightful)
I humbly submit a correction. All the FAT PIGS with huge moneybags for legal combat will tend to end at a standoff, but all the garage innovators will be shit out of luck. That is not a desirable outlook for the economy. Small and micro business is the lifeblood of an economy, and represents the hopes and dreams of the individual.
Re:What goes around comes around... (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that Samsung thing is about actual technology theft. As in, literally stealing technology from Samsung (via ex-employees).
Apple, on the other hand, sued over rounded corners and icons in a grid. (You know, something my Samsung phone used in 2005. Long before the iPhone was released.)
This is, yet again, about actual technology, and not rounded corners. From the patent brief it sounds kind of silly (it sounds like they're talking about being logged into a chat with the same account via multiple clients), but it's still actual technology and not just "we arranged icons that contain rounded corners in a grid and so did they." It's hardly the same thing as Apple is doing.
I don't think anyone can out-evil Apple in this patent war. Apple hasn't invented a damned thing in the mobile space, but they've managed to patent the ridiculous since they're unable to compete on actual merit.
Samsung suing a competitor over allegedly poaching employees to steal trade secrets isn't quite the same thing.
Re:Google already working to limit software patent (Score:2, Insightful)
So what's ok for Google is not ok for Apple. Because Apple shot first. (Or in their eyes were infringed upon first)
Justify it all you want, but if it's bullshit one direction, it's bullshit the other direction.
Re:Not complaining about Google fighting back (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, I really meant to say successfully banned a few devices from one maker. None of those other things went anywhere.
Wait, so did Googorola successfully ban all Macs, iPhones and iPads according to the RTFA which is why you are getting so riled up about Google?
Not to mention that many of those Apple requests for injunctions are still pending and awaiting trials/judgements.
But that's being pedantic; fine, I'll say Apple is is attempting to ban every Android device form shipping just to make things easy.
So then, that puts them on parity with Google's level of evil.
Now can we complain about BOTH companies equally please an the patent law itself that enables this?
Sorry, no. Before Apple started suing the Android OEMs, there was a detente among them. Apple shot first, breaking the de facto peace between themselves and HTC/Samsung/Motorola.
If Microsoft sued Apple tomorrow over a kernel patent over iOS/OS X and Apple sued them back with 100 patents to retaliate because they think they might lose, you think they BOTH MS and Apple deserve equal blame because "the patent law itself enables this"?
Re:Of course they won't.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Friendly advice, if you want to be able to retain your geek card, you'd better be able to recognize any major quote from Wargames.
What makes you think GP didn't realize the quote was from Wargames? Movie quotes are only clever though if they have some pertinence to the issue at hand, which in this case is MAD as applied to patent portfolios. In this game, there really is no winning move, which is his point.
Of course, this goes to show how ridiculous the original quote was, too. If by "don't play" they meant "don't stockpile nuclear weapons", the result would be the same as here: one country would cease to exist.
Re:Moto can lock them out of a big part of the cab (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't let you introduce your technology in to a standard like this unless you agree to make it available to everyone. Perhaps in the future, IEEE should require people to turn over their patents as a condition for inclusion in order to prevent this kind of nonsense.
Re:Like who again? (Score:3, Insightful)
Spot the confirmation bias" When Apple sues on patent ground it's attack. When Google sues on patent grounds it's defense.
Sounds like any war, when acts of aggression and defense are interchangeable, depending on which side the opinion holder has taken.
Re:Google already working to limit software patent (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is you think Apple 'defected'/shot first.
Apple thinks Google/Samsung 'defected'/shot first.
So who's actually right?
Google and Samsung. The sequence of the court filings is pretty clear.
Doesn't fit so nicely now, does it?
Your question? No, it doesn't. This thread is about who initiated the regulatory monopoly court proceedings.
Re:Like who again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple does not want 3rd parties to build anything for their products... period. You can't even make a charger for an iPod without licensing the connector from them.
You're contradicting yourself. If Apple didn't want third parties to build anything for their products they wouldn't license the connector to them.
Re:Like who again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Google, Apple (Score:-1, Insightful)
That would be a more convincing statement if every Apple competitor wasn't copying the designs of their products. Now all the laptops are aping the MacBook Air. It's ridiculous.
Re:Like who again? (Score:4, Insightful)
You've got some of your history wrong.
iPhone video chat (Facetime) was first available Feb 24th 2011.
Android video chat (Google Talk) came out in April 2011.
Both had video chat on PCs much earlier. Apple (iChat AV) in June 2003. Google didn't have it till 5 years later - Nov 11th 2008.
Multitasking the Android way isn't an innovation of theirs at all. Smartphones did that long before Android was even imagined. Multitasking the iOS way is an innovation though.
Quite prepared to give Android the credit for notifications though.
Re:Like who again? (Score:4, Insightful)
It has been solidly proven that Apple copied every else on the iPhone, stop repeating the same lies over and over and over again. This is not an Apple political forum. The patents were bullshit and everybody knows it, simply a straight up delaying tactic to keep competing products out of the market for as long as possible. You are not seeing the counter business tactic, cripple Apple's access to the market to accelerate 'competing', read that. 'competing' products access to the market. It's all about consumer choice not some bullshit Apple monopoly.
Re:Not Equivalent (Score:4, Insightful)
They are absolutely *not* trying to stop all Android devices.
Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but ol' Steve really wanted to.
"I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this. I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion [£25bn] in the bank, to right this wrong."
Seems to me Apple basically want to own the "x" on a touch screen device space, and would greatly prefer if other phone makers stuck to dumbphones, permanently.