4 ms·

Court Bans Whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram in Germany

42 points by lumannnn 7y ago

rahuldottech 7y ago
From what I can tell (the translation isn't perfect), one of the patents BlackBerry sued them over is being able to "email entire chat history". Also, "switching from one chat to another" and "friend proposals". Lmao. This stuff is ridiculous. I'm so glad my country (India) doesn't have software patents. Edit: so I looked it up, and the software patent situation is kinda weird here: > Software Patents in India is granted for an embedded software in a mobile application, and/or software plus hardware combination. However, patent law in India does not allow patent protection for software per se, whereby patenting a computer program is prohibited.
- legulere 7y ago
  We also don’t have software patents per se in Europe, but that doesn’t keep patent offices granting bullshit patents like this one
  - stingraycharles 7y ago
    But in this case it’s not just the patent office granting a patent, but actually winning a case in court as well. How does that work when supposedly software patents are not applicable?
    - rots 7y ago
      https://fsfe.org/campaigns/swpat/swpat.en.html https://fsfe.org/campaigns/swpat/swpat.en.html It's complicated, The European Patent Convention states that software is not patentable. But laws are always interpreted by courts, and in this case interpretations of the law differ.
      - Stiju 7y ago
        I’m not really sure how it works but can’t Facebook take it to the EU court and win this case?
- josefx 7y ago
  > However, patent law in India does not allow patent protection for software per se, whereby patenting a computer program is prohibited. I think that is similar in Germany, with courts using the "software per se" as excuse to let any patent that mentions a computing device of some sort slip through. Your software runs on actual hardware and has to deal with finite memory, bandwidth and/or processing power? Patent granted/upheld!
- userbinator 7y ago
  Does that mean things like video codec patents are completely void in India? If so, that's amazing because those are some of the most profitable patents around.
  - rahuldottech 7y ago
    That does appear to be the case!
- benignslime 7y ago
  The inclusion of the Indian view on software patents is interesting. I like the modern understanding; that they would specifically outline the difference between software and hardware is very important. Software patenting is a losers game, and countries should be hesitant when using them. Canada has a weak interpretation of computers. From the [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_Canadian_patent_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_Canadia...): > Computers, software, or related terms do not appear anywhere in the Patent Act. Therefore, as with any other invention, to be patentable a computer-using invention must meet the general requirements for patentability of any invention as found in the Act. > the "Invention" is defined in Section 2 of the Patent Act as: > "[A]ny new and useful art, process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement in any art, process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter".[1] > So, any invention must be new and useful. Inventions must also be non-obvious as provided in section 28.3.[2] Inventions must also fall into one of the five categories of patentable subject matter found in the definition of "invention" above. " I've personally known people who have secured patents in Canada, and always wondered why they could (was a fairly simple media-manipulation task). The wiki article mentions that Amazon was able to secure a patent for their One Click product, while an oil processing company wasn't able to patent a system that would help measure locations for oil drilling. The court argued the math used to calculate locations, would, if extracted, be something a person could be a "mathematical formulae and a series of purely mental operations", and it "fell within the prohibition in the Patent Act[2] against patents for scientific principles or abstract theorems". My point is it's all so grey. It seems that if you argue well enough, the court may just decide on that day to confirm the patent. It shouldn't be necessary to be provided examples, at all times, to deduce if a patent is necessary. Software patents go down the road of patenting script. You don't see people going about patenting poetry. Or even design patents on weird ascii art or the like. It's just not the format.
- iudqnolq 7y ago
  Not only that, apparently they're claiming that the fact anything can be shared to an email on an iPhone and the fact that WhatsApp allows the user to share their chat history combine to become a violation. > In the proceedings, the lawyers of both parties argued before the judge about complex technical details of the software, such as whether Whatsapp uses a technology on which Blackberry holds a patent when sending the entire "history" of a chat - i.e. the course of the chat - by e-mail to third parties. Or which parts of this process are executed by Whatsapps Software and which by the operating system iOS, for which Apple is responsible, not Facebook, but the manufacturer Apple. From the deepl translation
tus88 7y ago
Fuck software patents.
Operyl 7y ago
The DeepL translation is a bit easier to read: https://pastebin.com/raw/8PngEFcs https://pastebin.com/raw/8PngEFcs
zupa-hu 7y ago
Clickbait title. They are not banned. Blackberry won a patent case but there is no reason the apps can't be changed. (Current HN thread title: "Court Bans Whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram in Germany")
- lumannnn 7y ago
  The title indeed sounds quite clickbaity. I chose to use the exact translation of the original article's title as the title of the HN thread since "Süddeutsche Zeitung" usually is quite a reliable and transparent resource. Original source without translation: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/urteil-facebook-whatsapp-instagram-verbot-1.4713341 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/urteil-facebook-whatsapp...
aritmo 7y ago
How would this be enforced? Is the Play Store going to remove those apps from the devices that are located in Germany?
- Tomte 7y ago
  The court hits Facebook with ever-increasing fines, if it doesn't comply. But we're not there, yet, this order is preliminary. And Facebook has said they would rather comply than pull the apps altogether.
- Beldin 7y ago
  Under this ruling, Facebook may no longer offer its apps in their current form in the German version of the Google Play store. As the article remarks, the case doesn't involve core functionality of any of the apps, and FB claims to have compliant versions of their apps ready in case RIM seeks to have the provisional ruling enforced. (They can, but only if they pay 1.6 mil caution in case they lose in FB's appeal). So, FB would only have to push an update for each app. Not doing so would clearly fall afoul of this ruling.
- ce4 7y ago
  Blackberry would have to deposit a security of 1-1.6M € for each of the nine cases and then Facebook will have to comply and make said apps unavailable in the app stores.
adrianN 7y ago
Interesting to see that Blackberry still has enough money to dare something this ridiculous. I thought they were completely irrelevant by now.
Stiju 7y ago
Software patents shouldn’t even be a thing. Actually there shouldn’t be any patents at all. They only hinder development. If someone comes up with a solution/product/whatever that is better than the original, they should be able to create that. If this harms the original creator they’ll be forced to keep up and make their own thing better again. Competition is always good. It makes people strive to be better.
- mrmonkeyman 7y ago
  Yes, I'll just copy your life's work in a day and sell some "improvement" to it. That seems totally fair.
bsaul 7y ago
Anyone knows wat’s the state of software patent laws at the european parliement ? I remember they tried to create some laws that would be enforceable in all countries of the union, but i’m not clear on what’s the situation now. I’m actually pretty surprise software patent exist in germany.. i was pretty sure europe was software-patente free..

42 points by lumannnn 7y ago

From what I can tell (the translation isn't perfect), one of the patents BlackBerry sued them over is being able to "email entire chat history". Also, "switching from one chat to another" and "friend proposals". Lmao. This stuff is ridiculous. I'm so glad my country (India) doesn't have software patents. Edit: so I looked it up, and the software patent situation is kinda weird here: > Software Patents in India is granted for an embedded software in a mobile application, and/or software plus hardware combination. However, patent law in India does not allow patent protection for software per se, whereby patenting a computer program is prohibited.

legulere 7y ago
We also don’t have software patents per se in Europe, but that doesn’t keep patent offices granting bullshit patents like this one
- stingraycharles 7y ago
  But in this case it’s not just the patent office granting a patent, but actually winning a case in court as well. How does that work when supposedly software patents are not applicable?
  - rots 7y ago
    https://fsfe.org/campaigns/swpat/swpat.en.html https://fsfe.org/campaigns/swpat/swpat.en.html It's complicated, The European Patent Convention states that software is not patentable. But laws are always interpreted by courts, and in this case interpretations of the law differ.
    - Stiju 7y ago
      I’m not really sure how it works but can’t Facebook take it to the EU court and win this case?
josefx 7y ago
> However, patent law in India does not allow patent protection for software per se, whereby patenting a computer program is prohibited. I think that is similar in Germany, with courts using the "software per se" as excuse to let any patent that mentions a computing device of some sort slip through. Your software runs on actual hardware and has to deal with finite memory, bandwidth and/or processing power? Patent granted/upheld!
userbinator 7y ago
Does that mean things like video codec patents are completely void in India? If so, that's amazing because those are some of the most profitable patents around.
- rahuldottech 7y ago
  That does appear to be the case!
benignslime 7y ago
The inclusion of the Indian view on software patents is interesting. I like the modern understanding; that they would specifically outline the difference between software and hardware is very important. Software patenting is a losers game, and countries should be hesitant when using them. Canada has a weak interpretation of computers. From the [Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_Canadian_patent_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_Canadia...): > Computers, software, or related terms do not appear anywhere in the Patent Act. Therefore, as with any other invention, to be patentable a computer-using invention must meet the general requirements for patentability of any invention as found in the Act. > the "Invention" is defined in Section 2 of the Patent Act as: > "[A]ny new and useful art, process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement in any art, process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter".[1] > So, any invention must be new and useful. Inventions must also be non-obvious as provided in section 28.3.[2] Inventions must also fall into one of the five categories of patentable subject matter found in the definition of "invention" above. " I've personally known people who have secured patents in Canada, and always wondered why they could (was a fairly simple media-manipulation task). The wiki article mentions that Amazon was able to secure a patent for their One Click product, while an oil processing company wasn't able to patent a system that would help measure locations for oil drilling. The court argued the math used to calculate locations, would, if extracted, be something a person could be a "mathematical formulae and a series of purely mental operations", and it "fell within the prohibition in the Patent Act[2] against patents for scientific principles or abstract theorems". My point is it's all so grey. It seems that if you argue well enough, the court may just decide on that day to confirm the patent. It shouldn't be necessary to be provided examples, at all times, to deduce if a patent is necessary. Software patents go down the road of patenting script. You don't see people going about patenting poetry. Or even design patents on weird ascii art or the like. It's just not the format.
iudqnolq 7y ago
Not only that, apparently they're claiming that the fact anything can be shared to an email on an iPhone and the fact that WhatsApp allows the user to share their chat history combine to become a violation. > In the proceedings, the lawyers of both parties argued before the judge about complex technical details of the software, such as whether Whatsapp uses a technology on which Blackberry holds a patent when sending the entire "history" of a chat - i.e. the course of the chat - by e-mail to third parties. Or which parts of this process are executed by Whatsapps Software and which by the operating system iOS, for which Apple is responsible, not Facebook, but the manufacturer Apple. From the deepl translation

tus88 7y ago

Fuck software patents.

Operyl 7y ago

The DeepL translation is a bit easier to read: https://pastebin.com/raw/8PngEFcs https://pastebin.com/raw/8PngEFcs

zupa-hu 7y ago

Clickbait title. They are not banned. Blackberry won a patent case but there is no reason the apps can't be changed. (Current HN thread title: "Court Bans Whatsapp, Facebook and Instagram in Germany")

lumannnn 7y ago
The title indeed sounds quite clickbaity. I chose to use the exact translation of the original article's title as the title of the HN thread since "Süddeutsche Zeitung" usually is quite a reliable and transparent resource. Original source without translation: https://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/urteil-facebook-whatsapp-instagram-verbot-1.4713341 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/urteil-facebook-whatsapp...

aritmo 7y ago

How would this be enforced? Is the Play Store going to remove those apps from the devices that are located in Germany?

Tomte 7y ago
The court hits Facebook with ever-increasing fines, if it doesn't comply. But we're not there, yet, this order is preliminary. And Facebook has said they would rather comply than pull the apps altogether.
Beldin 7y ago
Under this ruling, Facebook may no longer offer its apps in their current form in the German version of the Google Play store. As the article remarks, the case doesn't involve core functionality of any of the apps, and FB claims to have compliant versions of their apps ready in case RIM seeks to have the provisional ruling enforced. (They can, but only if they pay 1.6 mil caution in case they lose in FB's appeal). So, FB would only have to push an update for each app. Not doing so would clearly fall afoul of this ruling.
ce4 7y ago
Blackberry would have to deposit a security of 1-1.6M € for each of the nine cases and then Facebook will have to comply and make said apps unavailable in the app stores.

adrianN 7y ago

Interesting to see that Blackberry still has enough money to dare something this ridiculous. I thought they were completely irrelevant by now.

Stiju 7y ago

Software patents shouldn’t even be a thing. Actually there shouldn’t be any patents at all. They only hinder development. If someone comes up with a solution/product/whatever that is better than the original, they should be able to create that. If this harms the original creator they’ll be forced to keep up and make their own thing better again. Competition is always good. It makes people strive to be better.

mrmonkeyman 7y ago
Yes, I'll just copy your life's work in a day and sell some "improvement" to it. That seems totally fair.

bsaul 7y ago

Anyone knows wat’s the state of software patent laws at the european parliement ? I remember they tried to create some laws that would be enforceable in all countries of the union, but i’m not clear on what’s the situation now. I’m actually pretty surprise software patent exist in germany.. i was pretty sure europe was software-patente free..