Patent Case Could Shift Power Balance In Tech Industry 83
An anonymous reader writes A lawsuit between Apple and Google could drastically change the power balance between patent holders and device makers. "The dispute centers on so-called standard-essential patents, which cover technology that is included in industry-wide technology standards. Since others have to use the technology if they want their own products to meet an industry standard, the companies that submit their patents for approval by standards bodies are required to license them out on 'reasonable and non-discriminatory',(paywalled) or RAND, terms." If Apple wins, the understanding of what fees are RAND may decrease by at least an order of magnitude.
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He *is* a loser for doing a "first post" post, but when this article was put up, comments weren't loading, so it probably did appear like he was the first post when he submitted his non-first-post.
Apple has little to do with this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Apple has little to do with this (Score:4, Insightful)
But yeah, trying to say it's Apple v. Google is a troll.
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Nonsense. Both Apple and Microsoft are in the wrong here.
If it's a part of an "industry standard" then the patent should be FREE. Don't like that? Don't make your invention part of something that no one can avoid.
It's like recreating the DOS monopoly by committe.
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While I agree, aren't Microsoft and Apple at least arguing in that direction (they want it to be cheaper and their foe wants the licensing to remain as prohibitively and market-entry-denyingly expensive as possible)?
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You've got it backwards/sideways/confused/something.
Apple and Microsoft are on the SAME SIDE and are arguing FOR CHEAPER licenses.
RTFM. It's only about one page long.
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Yes. I don't understand why novel and useful inventions should be licensed for peanuts(preferably free apparently to M$ and Apple although IIRC M$ actually does own some standards patents unlike Apple who have nothing non-obvious, novel and useful) while utterly useless and obvious sh!t(complete w/prior art in the physical world) like unlock is somehow worth trillions.
Also no, just because a particular invention is utilized in an industry standard does NOT mean that it should be free. The body creating th
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I don't understand why novel and useful inventions should be licensed for peanuts(preferably free apparently to M$ and Apple although IIRC M$ actually does own some standards patents unlike Apple who have nothing non-obvious, novel and useful) while utterly useless and obvious sh!t(complete w/prior art in the physical world) like unlock is somehow worth trillions.
Because "slide to unlock" isn't necessary to communicate voice data and IPv4 packets to an LTE mast. If you can't see the difference between a patent on a radio or transmission scheme, and a design patent for a gimmicky touchscreen feature then you really have no business commenting on standards essential patents and the licensing schemes that surround them.
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This is an excellent point.
Expensive research, inspired innovation and extensive testing to assure reliable, robust and effective radio equipment should definitely be worth more than fucking obvious "do more than accidentally touch the screen to unlock" elementary design.
So I agree entirely that there's a difference, and so do the standards bodies - they don't need a standard for sliding as it's such a trivial thing to think of, design and implement.
After all, nobody is forced to comply with the standards,
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So you are saying MS and apple should be forced to release their industry standard patents for free, or at least a magnitude cheaper than they are now?
Patent fees are always RAND... (Score:5, Funny)
specifically, RAND(toomuch,waytoomuch).
Re:Patent fees are always RAND... (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? Downvoted for a bad programming joke?
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You just made me very sad. Where do clever, informed tech people talk endlessly about news nowadays?
I place my head in the toilet, my nose a millimeter from the water, and I converse with the pipes.
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Maybe it's because you had a . instead of a ; at the end of your code.
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Okay that made me giggle.
Although to be fair I never specified a programming language. Hell, I don't even know what languages my joke would have been valid in... I was thinking excel when I made the joke o_O
So..? (Score:2)
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Doesn't matter much since Apple isn't part of the case. They just submitted an amiscus backing Microsoft.
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Amicus, thatis.
Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't say I'm rooting for either party here, but I hate the idea of SEPs [wikipedia.org] in general... If a method is literally the only permitted way to do a thing, should it be patentable?
Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
Can't say I'm rooting for either party here, but I hate the idea of SEPs [wikipedia.org] in general... If a method is literally the only permitted way to do a thing, should it be patentable?
If there is only one way to do it, then it is a fact of nature and can not be patented. Also, if the standard has been published, that counts as prior art so no new patents can be applied there. However if I choose to create a standard that requires your existing patent, why should that give me the power to invalidate your patent?
Standards bodies usually try to avoid patents but this is often not practical because there are so many patents and the best solution is often patented.
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Informative)
No they don't.
A standards body works like this - industry wants to come up with a new standard for some reason - perhaps faster part, new technology whatever. So the standards body convenes a group of people from industry who then argue out the merits and the specifications of the new technology standard. Along the way, patents get hashed out - and a lot of politicking goes on in getting your patent in the standard.
When it comes to patents and standards, you have two options - you could not offer the patent for licensing and have the standards body work around it, or you can have it become part of the standard, with the caveat that you must license to anyone and everyone as FRAND terms.
Depending on the patent, one way may be better than the other, but in general, it's usually nicer to have people paying you so you make it FRAND. Which means at times there's a lot of back scratching to get your patent in the standard.
Most standards are patented. Ethernet, WiFi, etc., they usually all have some form of license fee to be paid.
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There is a third option.
Put your technology in the standard but don't tell anyone you own the patents on it. Then when everyone is implemented the standard you ask for license fees.
This is what RAMBUS did.
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Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that companies spend money doing R&D on this stuff, and for once it's actually real stuff they are inventing that is genuinely non-obvious and has practical uses. We all benefit if the standard can make use of the best technologies available, otherwise we would have to wait for patents to expire to get things like faster mobile internet access.
The RAND rules are supposed to make sure that those patents are available to everyone at a reasonable cost. The issue here is that most companies just cross-licence their own patents on exchange for using the RAND ones for free, but Apple doesn't have any to licence and doesn't want to pay the (reasonable) monetary fee instead.
All Apple has are a bunch of largely worthless design patents that can easily be worked around. It tried to buy in to the Rockstar patent abuse group but it wasn't enough.
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It's not that there is only one way to do a task.
It is that in order to do a task in an interoperable manner, a standards committee has to pick one way among many.
The participants obviously want the pick to require their patents.
To get this to happen they have to agree to license them FRAND before they get picked.
Being picked make you patent more valuable.
It goes from a way to do something that somebody might, in theory want to do,
to the way to do something that everybody wants to do.
The problem is that rea
Can't be bothered to RTFA, editors? (Score:1)
The court case is between MICROSOFT and Google, not Apple and Google.
Apple did file an amicus brief largely supporting Microsoft's position, but they're not a party to the case.
Its Google versus Microsoft (Score:3)
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Can't the submitter at least read the article they are submitting? Moron.
You must be new here.
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:-)
What does it all mean? (Score:2)
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Could Apple ever be considered a monopoly? They have around 25% of phones worldwide, and I believe it is around 5% of computers (from Wikipedia it looks like around 5% of desktop OSes).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U... [wikipedia.org]
Re:What does it all mean? (Score:4, Funny)
The degree to which Apple is a monopoly in any market is dependent entirely upon the point that a particular fanboy is trying to make that day. They can either be obscure and on the ropes or they can be nearly taking over the planet. It all depends on what that day's agenda is.
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FTFA (Score:2)
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MS bought mobile phone business of Nokia. I guess you could say MS pwned Nokia by getting Elop as the CEO, but that too is in the past now and Elop is back to MS payroll (I mean, publicly).
Apple and Microsoft buddies in the courtroom... (Score:2)
On a more serious note they need to something similar with software patents. Well at least the ones that aren't complete garbage.
Paywalled FT article (Score:2)
Microsoft vs Google (Score:3)
I find it interesting that nobody is disputing the validity of the patents, but only the amount you can charge for them. Both sides want patents to remain strong.
"standard-essential patents” (Score:5, Insightful)
Any “standard-essential patents” should be public domain (or as close as possible, as Elon Musk did with the Tesla battery circuitry), or they should not be included in the standards. Period. FRAND/RAND is code for forming a club where the existing players get to play, but for which there is still a large - potentially huge) cost to join said club - and therefore an artificial barrier to entry into any existing market.
Either make it free to license, or leave it out of the standard, please.
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The result of that will be that there are no more general standards, and once again every manufacturer is doing his own thing (since there is no longer any public spending in research, all of it is done by for-profit entities). Way to go for the benefit of the public...
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You have to have pretty strong regulations for patents to even exist. In an anarchy, you're allowed to implement whatever you want, without groveling for anyone's permission. So libertarians, if they super-concerned about avoiding being conflated with anarchists, have to weigh all the evils and decide which is the least bad. But it'll definitely involve someone's liberties being infringed.
Once possible decision as "Libertarian Tyrant" would be to point a gun at the patent holders' heads and say they're re
Re:"standard-essential patents” (Score:4, Insightful)
No one is suggesting denying anyone a patent. (Score:2)
That just simply wouldn't work. As another poster already pointed out, if you deny them the patent, then they have no reason to involve themselves in researching such, or standardizing.
No one is suggesting denying anyone a patent. What's being suggested is that if something is patented, it shouldn't be part of the standard which everyone has to follow to compete *at all* in the market.
A really good example of this is the Qualcomm CDMA patent. They did a lot of great work, behind that patent, and they deserve the patent. But you shouldn't have to implement it in order to implement a cell phone that works, and be completely locked out of building cell phones otherwise. It should not be
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Ok, if you give essential patents for free, won't you also have to give insignificant patents (e.g. slide to unlock) for free? I know Apple is not much related to this regardless the summary, but they, for example wanted to charge others something like $20 for insignificant design patents, when at the same time they wanted to get basic communications ones almost free...
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Ok, if you give essential patents for free, won't you also have to give insignificant patents (e.g. slide to unlock) for free?
I think you are confusing de facto standards (like "slide to unlock") and de jure standards (like "RFC 793").
The first is "I'd like to do this because everyone else is doing this, and it's neat". The second is "In order to get your device to talk to the Internet at all, you have to implement this standard".
The term "standard-essential" in this context refers to de jure standards.
While it might be a pain in the rear if you can not "slide to unlock", the only thing that it prohibits you from doing is having
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Slide to Unlock is not necessary for a phone to talk to LTE towers, or send SMS messages.
This is why there is a difference between design patents and standards essential patents.
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and from TFS:
Are both the wishful thinking version of how things will play out.
If RAND fees drop by an order of magnitude or are eliminated, the outcome is simple: Nobody will submit patents of any valu
It's Microsoft vs. Google... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, to be fair, it's Microsoft vs. Motorola which was acquired by Google, which still holds the patents. Apple filed a brief in support of Microsoft. The ruling that Apple is support of upholding is that Microsoft only owed a couple of million a year for it's use of those standards in its products.
Motorola sought an amount of four billion a year plus 20 billion in back fees. Google and Qualcomm is arguing the latest ruling was over-reaching, and that they need the ability to charge more. But, given the initial demand, it is clear they want to charge orders of magnitude more for these patents and to seek relief from previous sales. It's pennies versus dollars and that adds up.
And frankly, Google should know better. It's benefited enormously from these technologies being available at a low cost. I know this goes against the Slashdot mindset, but Microsoft is on the right side of the argument here.
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No sane lawyer would do this, and no competent judge would allow it.
FT Paywall (Score:3)
angers me (Score:2)
RAND Paul (Score:3)
I can't say yet who I'm voting for in 2016, but I can tell you one guy I'm NOT voting for. Hint: I just mentioned him.