HTC Ready For Apple Patent War 98
chrb writes "The BBC have an interview with HTC CEO Peter Chou. Last week, a judge at the International Trade Commission found that HTC had violated two of Apple's patents. HTC shares fell 7% on the news. Chou predicts that HTC will win an appeal against the ITC finding in December. He also reveals that HTC is preparing to fight back; it will soon acquire an extra 235 patents from its takeover of S3 Graphics — including two that Apple has already been found guilty of infringing."
Re:Obviously (Score:4, Insightful)
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(I may be getting my neo-fascist fucktard memes mixed up here. Slightly.)
Oops, I forgot to use twenty+ exclamation marks. But that would just disturb the Force of Slashcode, so I won't bother ; take them as read and insert randomly as you see fit.
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Which part of that has anything to do with anything? Did that actually form a coherent rebuttal in your mind? Are you that blinded by anti-Apple rage?
Right. (Score:1)
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bucket? the government should open the strategic popcorn reserves...
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Probably more along the lines of a dump truck.
...Huh. (Score:5, Insightful)
"it will soon acquire an extra 235 patents from its takeover of S3 Graphics"
Re:...Huh. (Score:5, Interesting)
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That's pretty idiotic. All of these patent suits do nothing but hurt us the customers, and yet you're so blinded by your hate for Apple that you're really cool with technological progress being artificially slowed by any other company? Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid.
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Uhh, Apple is the one continually stifling progress by throwing around patents. Are you new here?
Maybe having to take some of their own medicine will make them think a little differently. I mean they even have patents that now prevent the W3C, an organization they are a member of, from making progress on finalizing standards. How does that one work?
Not like I really like HTC either. If they both litigate each-other into the ground I'd find that massively entertaining.
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Do you really think Apple is the only one stifling progress? That's my point, and that's why the GP's point is idiotic. All of these patent suits stifle progress and being in favor of other companies becoming patent trolls just for the sake of seeing Apple lose a lawsuit is idiotic.
Do you really think Apple losing a patent suit will make them against Apple. Are you new here? When Microsoft lost patent suits, did they go all out against software patents? When Apple lost previous patent suits, did th
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While I do hope Apple loses this patent troll suit...
"it will soon acquire an extra 235 patents from its takeover of S3 Graphics" ...I really hope HTC doesn't become tomorrow's patent troll.
This is how it works, unfortunately. It's not about who invents what, it's just ammo to be bought and hoarded in a destructive corporate war. It's this behaviour that gets rewarded, while companies who are against software patents get punished.
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The patent being granted IS certification of validity, legally and everything. Sure, it doesn't mean it even remotely ought to be valid, but that's how the patent law works...once granted, it's someone else's job to prove invalidity.
The reason many patents were granted... well, there are so many. A good number of software patents were granted because the examiners at the PTO in these cases didn't know squat about software development, and so had no basis for rejecting them (well, or understanding them..). B
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I think of patent trolls as those who don't produce anything (or anything of perceptible market value), yet sue over the fact that they hold a patent. HTC is actually producing products.
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I think of patent trolls as those who don't produce anything (or anything of perceptible market value), yet sue over the fact that they hold a patent. HTC is actually producing products.
As a fan of HTC (I've owned two HTC Android phones and would buy another if they release one with a physical KB) but am wary HTC becoming a patent troll. However producing something does not prevent someone from being a patent troll. Apple produces something but it's no longer able to compete effectively, so they are suing in an attempt to hinder their competition. I dont think HTC will do the same, but I wont ignore the possibility.
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One way or another, somebody is going to have them.
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Apple, by definition, cannot be a patent troll. Because they attack another company over patents for which they actually produced a product.
So no, Apple is not the next patent troll. And no, 235 patents aren't going to help HTC against the hundreds of thousands that Apple holds.
If only they'd make patents valid for one year (in software and in technology in general), all this would go away a lot sooner.
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Apple is a patent troll because they're patenting things that, if it weren't for legalese and unethical laws, shouldn't be patent-able.
Aaaaand, congratulations. However, that's not what we call a patent troll.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll [wikipedia.org]
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Of course... because it's not like HTC would try to then sue the other makers of Android phones of violating their patents right??
HTC might be in the mood to start thinning the Android herd a bit.
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Play with fire and get burned (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it is very fitting, for companies who sue using patents to have said sued companies come back with even more patents and try to cause financial harm to them in the same manner.
There are too many people in the world for ideas to be the property of a single man. Companies still get first mover advantage if they are the first to do something.
Another round (Score:4, Informative)
Apple paid the lion's share for the 6,000 Nortel patents purchased by the Apple/MS/RIM consortium.
And much of that isn't software patents and such, it's hard-core telecommunications patents, including many covering LTE.
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So while it will bring Apple some strategic advantage, it will not necessarely bring disadvantages to it's competitors.
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It will bring definite disadvantage to any possible new competitors, since Apple et. al. will be able to handily keep them out of the market. In the mobile space, there will only be the incumbents. No new companies will rise, and this "Patent Axis" will make sure of that.
Re:Just die, Apple. (+Oracle) (Score:1)
Chess with patents? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the ONE Patent (Score:1)
Rumor has it that Bill Gates has recently acquired the one patent to rule them all.
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Not chess, it's Global Thermonuclear War.
Care to play a game?
In all seriousness, the whole telecommunications patent system was in some ways held together by a MAD philosophy. Once one corporation thought they had an advantage and fired the first shot, the inevitable domino effect has pulled in every major company involved in the industry. Now granted, it isn't mutually assured destruction because it's a zero sum game, someone will come out ahead (though after you subtract out legal costs perhaps not), it
Ready for War or Negotiation? (Score:4, Insightful)
(Posting as AC because I'm at work and I don't log into websites from work...)
According to Bloomberg, HTC is ready to negotiate with Apple. [bloomberg.com] Now, I know that's not as exciting as "HTC Ready for Apple Patent War" because there's just so much sensationalism in that, but why let facts get in the way of sensationalism, right?
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in the same interview Mr. Chou goes to great lengths to express how they want to settle with Apple
Oh really? Where exactly in the interview does Mr. Chou say that?
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why let facts get in the way of sensationalism
The BBC article has the headline "HTC is braced for Apple smartphone patent war: Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC has said it is prepared to wage a patent war against Apple." The summary says "HTC Ready for Apple Patent War". Are the two really so different?
anti-competition (Score:5, Insightful)
How about we compete on innovation instead of on ability to lock a competitor out of a market?
Re:anti-competition (Score:4, Interesting)
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You realize Newton series was mainly just repackaged Sharp hardware, don't you? Granted they wrote their own software, but the hardware and most of the form factors came from other companies, who had been selling that hardware with their own ROM's before Apple even started. Sharp and Casio in particular started making "pockecon" [pocket computer] in 1980, the devices that would later be called PDA's.
Check it out, first sentence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MessagePad [wikipedia.org]
For reference, most of the Newton devic
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Of course, when Apple violates others' patents (eg well established valid ones from Nokia), they refuse to licence...
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Look at these tables, and ignore the rest, because it's Florian Mueller: http://fosspatents.blogspot.com/2011/07/these-tables-show-how-android-infringes.html [blogspot.com]
Patent troll? Yes. These complaints basically amount to "running a regex on an incoming text to look for things like addresses, and then making it possible for the user to interact with the recognized address by e.g. opening up Maps and having Maps search for that address," and claiming that no one can have an API which allows real-time interaction with
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It's a war game designed to stake out territory and drive the barriers to entry up. The goal is to destroy competition, first and foremost.
That is absolutely not what's going on here. This is about filing and buying as many patents as possible to ensure that
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Apple is not your run of the mill patent troll. They actually make products incorporating these patentable inventions
So does HTC.
The problem is... (Score:4)
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Apple did not repatent multi-touch , they bought the company that had the patents.
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Patent wars, everyone loses. (Score:1)
These constant patent wars are ripping the one precious resource that is in shortest supply: Time.
We are frittering away hours that could be used for so much more. We must streamline, cleanup and in general FIX this abomination called patent law.
Aliens vs Predators (Score:3)
This seems very relevant to this article...
"No matter who wins, we lose"
All these patent lawsuits only result in settlements and royalties paid which then creates more costs to pass on to us consumers.
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Its not like you have to buy HTC or Apple. Or buy new phone each year. If its just voice and text, then phone from 10 years ago does this job just as good as current ones. Sure you don't have nice threaded view on SMS and touch interface, but battery holds for much longer.
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Granted there are not many easy solutions to this gross misuse of the original intent of patent law, but the answer of "don't buy a smartphone" isn't really going to help much. It's a systemic problem widespread in t
Buy HTC stocks now! (Score:2)
If the HTC CEO says so, it must be true.
Now make those 7% recover please, or he won't get his bonus this month.
This American Life - "When Patents Attack" (Score:5, Informative)
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It's certainly more mainstream than Slashdot.
With NPR, at least it'll make other major media outlets aware of the issue and begin to run their own segments on software patents. Which stance they take depends on the network, but having it out in the open for discussion is better than nobody knowing that it is even a thing.
Who to Believe (Score:1)
Within minutes of each other, we have one story here that says they will duke it out, and TechCrunch saying that they are now scared and are going to settle (http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/26/htc-warms-up-to-settlement-talks-with-apple/).
Seriously, there is way too much speculative journalism and hot shot CEOs all trying to put a good spin on where they stand.
In the end: Patents are killing everything, and we all lose. If it doesn't get under control soon, it will just be a big royal rumble cage match where
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In the end: Patents are killing everything, and we all lose.
Not if you're an inventor, or entrepreneur. The company I work for has 'invented' some pretty neat stuff - Patents ensure that we get revenue from our inventions - Others license rights to use our IP.
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Only if you don't actually try to make what you invent. If you do, then somebody else will come and sue you over twelve hundred "inventions" that they previously patented that are similar to some minor aspect of what you invented.
In the current patent climate, only patent trolls win. The only way to fix this is to shorten patent terms and limit transferability of patents from employees to their employers.