Google Seeks US Ban On iPhones, iPads, Macs 404
theodp writes "Following up on an announcement that it would rid itself of 4,000 employees world-wide and renege on a deal with the State of Illinois, Google's Motorola Mobility unit said it has filed a new patent-infringement case against Apple, which seeks a ban on U.S. imports of devices including the iPhone, iPad and Mac computers. 'Apple's unwillingness to work out a license leaves us little choice but to defend ourselves and our engineers' innovations,' Motorola Mobility said in an e-mailed statement."
Where do you get "renege" from? (Score:5, Informative)
The article says that if they retain 2500 then they get the tax breaks: if they don't, they don't. They've clearly decided that the extra payroll isn't worth the breaks so they have chosen to give them up. That's the deal. Nothing is being "reneged" on. They are complying with the agreement.
IMHO such deals should not exist, but that's a seperate issue.
Re:How can this be ? (Score:5, Informative)
TFA makes it pretty clear that they're not suing over the radio patents at all... this is over things like location awareness, e-mail push, and embedded video players....
Re:Well... (Score:3, Informative)
If only Apple would look at the Wright Brothers as an example of what happens to you when you attempt to restrain competition by enforcing patents [wikipedia.org].
Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
No there are two issues.
One is a bunch of look and feel patents and functionality patents and mostly Apple is doing the suing.
The other are a bunch of older patents about communication. And there Apple is supposed to be paying 2.5% if it is not under a co-licensing but thinks that's too high because their phones aren't $40... and in that one I have a tough time seeing how Apple is going to win.
Apple picked a fist fight. Motorola/Google had a knife and told Apple to back off. Apple instead charged and now got stabbed
Re:Well... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Well... (Score:0, Informative)
The first punch was not a law suit but by coping a product. That is a kick in the groins.
Remember : Eric 'MoleMan' Schmidt was sitting conveniently on the Apple board of directors when the iPhone was developed with access to all prototypes and planning protocols.
If he would have been honest and fair, he would have notified Apple that his Company (Google) will cobble together a competing product.
Re:How can this be ? (Score:3, Informative)
Defending a patent from a frequent attacker is not attacking someone outright.
If I walk up and punch someone, it's an attack. If that person has been provoking me for an hour, and I deck him, it's self-defense.
An extension of an ongoing shoving match (Score:4, Informative)
Looks like a shoving match to me. (How many steps did I leave out?
Re:How can this be ? (Score:5, Informative)
Hello! Apple was threatening to SUE Motorola over swipe to unlock and others right when Microsoft threaned to sue them over FAT and ActiveSync. Motorolla fired back with actual litigation against the agressors. Please stop spreading misinformation.
Corrections:
Apple did not just threaten to sue Motorola over Swipe-to-Unlock, it actually did sue them [intomobile.com] and won. Swipe to unlock is a common idea, present long before any sort of smartphone or touch-screen device ever had it, and is entirely a software patent.
Motorola sued Apple and won [arstechnica.com] over the method the 3G radio chips use to time the signals to and from the tower. A hardware and software patent that is exclusively relevant to 3G mobile devices.
Apple has been the clear aggressor all along, and their patent claims are largely trollish and petty rather than valid technical patents. Please stop spreading disinformation.
Re:Well... (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, you said Google but it is still relevant that Apple sued Motorola since it is the Motorola unit of Google that is suing Apple.
Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Well... (Score:4, Informative)
That's kind of the point. Motorola has NOT been offering patents to Microsoft and Apple at the terms they have offered to other people. (They want literally orders of magnitude more money for the patents.)
If it were that clear-cut, there would be no lawsuit. Motorola is offering these patents under exactly the same terms that they offer to everyone else. These terms are a fixed percentage of the final device cost. This satisfied the Fair and Non-Discriminatory parts of FRAND. Apple is arguing that they are not Reasonable, because the same percentage of a $20 dumb phone and a $600 smartphone is a very significant difference for using the patents in exactly the same way.