6 ms·

BN seems to want to make this something it isn't. It's a standard patent infringement suit, with licensing opportunity. BN's motive speculations don't add any

BN seems to want to make this something it isn't. It's a standard patent infringement suit, with licensing opportunity. BN's motive speculations don't add anything as using patents against competitors is common. The whole Nokia thread is odd. They're not a party in any way of this lawsuit. And furthermore IP cross licensing amoung partners is extremely common, if not the flat out norm. BN should stick with trying to invalidate the patents, and not conspiracy theories.

wccrawford 16y ago
Just because it's the norm doesn't mean it's right. There are plenty of things that companies used to do that are now illegal because they ensure monopolies or otherwise disrupt the economy. I wouldn't be surprised to see that patent cross-licensing like this turns out to be one of those things in the future. I have to agree that it would be better to invalidate the patents, but sometimes you have to settle for what you can get. And hopefully it'll be another step towards patent reform.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  But MS plus Nokia isn't near a monopoly in mobile devices. Google plus Apple maybe, but MS/Nokia are currently hanging on for life in this market.
  - rbanffy 16y ago
    And that makes me believe Microsoft will do anything to gain share there (or to, at least, extract some revenue from the other players in the space).
  - ZeroGravitas 16y ago
    B&N claim that Microsoft is asserting control over Android via (tangential) patents which, when you add Nokia, gives them control over the Number 1 & 2 smartphone OSes, plus Windows Mobile which is about 2/3rds of the global market. So under this theory either Microsoft is right, and deserves payment for the vital IP it has over Android and therefore controls large segments of the market, or Microsoft is wrong, and has no ownership and control but in that case deserves no money.
    - cooldeal 16y ago
      >B&N claim that Microsoft is asserting control over Android via (tangential) patents which, when you add Nokia, gives them control over the Number 1 & 2 smartphone OSes, plus Windows Mobile which is about 2/3rds of the global market. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Apple asserting it's patents against HTC, Samsung and Motorola will give them control over 75% of the US market, so it's now an anti-trust concern? I think that argument is a stretch.
rbanffy 16y ago
Intent is important. Microsoft is using those patents to disrupt an ecosystem it deems threatening to its need to (illegally) leverage its desktop OS monopoly into the mobile space in order to gain market share there. Android is a threat to Microsoft's desktop market because it furthers the trend away from PCs and towards mobile devices. Microsoft is also using its "war chest" to threaten less well financed players with long and expensive legal battles, the costs of which it can cover rather easily. Oh yes, I am criticizing Microsoft. Let the karma burn.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  That's a stretch. Especially since the largest players over to past decade haven't been attacked in this way by MS... Apple, Palm, RIM. In the tablet space even Android is a niche player compared to the iPad. Additionally until recently the Nook was pretty much just an eReader, with the most popular software client running on Windows. My point is this is a stretch, like any good conspiracy theory.
  - nobodyspecial 16y ago
    ahh, but it's not that MS IS a monopoly in the market, it's that MS is using a current monopoly to leverage into another market.
    - kenjackson 16y ago
      But licensing or suing isn't leveraging their current monopoly. They aren't blocking Android from syncing on Windows. They're not blocking the Nook client from working on Windows. They're not bundling WP with Windows. They're suing over patents. Last I checked even monopolies could sue over patent infringement. If BN asserted they were actually using their monopoly power then that would be one thing. But simply asserting that a monopoly in one space is being scrappy in another doesn't meet the bar.
      - rbanffy 16y ago
        > But licensing or suing isn't leveraging their current monopoly Using the income from monopoly A for threatening to drag players in market B (that's about to become more relevant than monopoly A) into legal wars that only the plaintiff can afford is... well... shady. > They're suing over patents. Last I checked even monopolies could sue over patent infringement. Unless they are using those patents to prevent competitors from competing with them. If you consider the mobile ecosystem as competition to the desktop ecosystem, you can argue they are leveraging a monopoly (because the monopolist in segment A can afford a legal battle nobody in segment B can) to prevent it from being rendered worthless by a segment they can't monopolize.
VengefulCynic 16y ago
It's important to note here that a big piece of Barnes & Noble's argument is bad faith on the part of Microsoft. They're characterizing Microsoft as a bully who is attempting (under cover of NDA) to use a limited number of patents (with limited scope) to extract a per-device license that is greater than what it charges for providing the entire operating system (and access to its patents) on WP7. In layman's terms, it's like if I owned a patent on a keyboard and tried to keep you from making a computer to compete with mine by charging a licensing fee for my keyboard patent that was more than the cost of my entire computer. That's what Barnes and Noble is accusing Microsoft of doing.
- kenjackson 16y ago
  They're characterizing Microsoft as a bully who is attempting (under cover of NDA) to use a limited number of patents (with limited scope) to extract a per-device license that is greater than what it charges for providing the entire operating system (and access to its patents) on WP7. But is that illegal? AFAIK MS is under no obligation to license these patents at all, much less under RAND. And again, MS has no monopoly on WP7, so a comparison to WP7 pricing has nothing to do with their monopoly status on the desktop. In many regards MS is doing this exactly right. They are being aggressive in the mobile space, but they are NOT using their desktop market position to accelerate it. They're not blocking bn.com from IE. They're not bunding WP7 with Windows 7. They're not saying that BN must license these patents if they want to sell Windows 7 as a retailer. To put it another, imagine WP7 was its own company. Would they be doing anything differently? I don't think so. I think they'd still be scrappy trying to leverage their assets in any way to make money and slow down competitors. They aren't using the desktop/server OS monopolies at all for any quid pro quo. What they're doing today is what they'd be able to do as a standalone company. This implies that they're not using their monopoly position as leverage.
  - VengefulCynic 16y ago
    You're getting hot and bothered about legal arguments that just aren't there. Other than alleging antitrust implications by Nokia and Microsoft cross-licensing patents from (between them) a dominant position in the mobile phone industry, there aren't any legal arguments about monopolies in this filing. 98% of this filing is about misapplication of patent law and bad patents. This has nothing to do with anti-trust other than one line in one paragraph in a 70-paragraph defense and counterclaim section.

wccrawford 16y ago

Just because it's the norm doesn't mean it's right. There are plenty of things that companies used to do that are now illegal because they ensure monopolies or otherwise disrupt the economy. I wouldn't be surprised to see that patent cross-licensing like this turns out to be one of those things in the future. I have to agree that it would be better to invalidate the patents, but sometimes you have to settle for what you can get. And hopefully it'll be another step towards patent reform.

kenjackson 16y ago
But MS plus Nokia isn't near a monopoly in mobile devices. Google plus Apple maybe, but MS/Nokia are currently hanging on for life in this market.
- rbanffy 16y ago
  And that makes me believe Microsoft will do anything to gain share there (or to, at least, extract some revenue from the other players in the space).
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  B&N claim that Microsoft is asserting control over Android via (tangential) patents which, when you add Nokia, gives them control over the Number 1 & 2 smartphone OSes, plus Windows Mobile which is about 2/3rds of the global market. So under this theory either Microsoft is right, and deserves payment for the vital IP it has over Android and therefore controls large segments of the market, or Microsoft is wrong, and has no ownership and control but in that case deserves no money.
  - cooldeal 16y ago
    >B&N claim that Microsoft is asserting control over Android via (tangential) patents which, when you add Nokia, gives them control over the Number 1 & 2 smartphone OSes, plus Windows Mobile which is about 2/3rds of the global market. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Apple asserting it's patents against HTC, Samsung and Motorola will give them control over 75% of the US market, so it's now an anti-trust concern? I think that argument is a stretch.

rbanffy 16y ago

Intent is important. Microsoft is using those patents to disrupt an ecosystem it deems threatening to its need to (illegally) leverage its desktop OS monopoly into the mobile space in order to gain market share there. Android is a threat to Microsoft's desktop market because it furthers the trend away from PCs and towards mobile devices. Microsoft is also using its "war chest" to threaten less well financed players with long and expensive legal battles, the costs of which it can cover rather easily. Oh yes, I am criticizing Microsoft. Let the karma burn.

kenjackson 16y ago
That's a stretch. Especially since the largest players over to past decade haven't been attacked in this way by MS... Apple, Palm, RIM. In the tablet space even Android is a niche player compared to the iPad. Additionally until recently the Nook was pretty much just an eReader, with the most popular software client running on Windows. My point is this is a stretch, like any good conspiracy theory.
- nobodyspecial 16y ago
  ahh, but it's not that MS IS a monopoly in the market, it's that MS is using a current monopoly to leverage into another market.
  - kenjackson 16y ago
    But licensing or suing isn't leveraging their current monopoly. They aren't blocking Android from syncing on Windows. They're not blocking the Nook client from working on Windows. They're not bundling WP with Windows. They're suing over patents. Last I checked even monopolies could sue over patent infringement. If BN asserted they were actually using their monopoly power then that would be one thing. But simply asserting that a monopoly in one space is being scrappy in another doesn't meet the bar.
    - rbanffy 16y ago
      > But licensing or suing isn't leveraging their current monopoly Using the income from monopoly A for threatening to drag players in market B (that's about to become more relevant than monopoly A) into legal wars that only the plaintiff can afford is... well... shady. > They're suing over patents. Last I checked even monopolies could sue over patent infringement. Unless they are using those patents to prevent competitors from competing with them. If you consider the mobile ecosystem as competition to the desktop ecosystem, you can argue they are leveraging a monopoly (because the monopolist in segment A can afford a legal battle nobody in segment B can) to prevent it from being rendered worthless by a segment they can't monopolize.

VengefulCynic 16y ago

It's important to note here that a big piece of Barnes & Noble's argument is bad faith on the part of Microsoft. They're characterizing Microsoft as a bully who is attempting (under cover of NDA) to use a limited number of patents (with limited scope) to extract a per-device license that is greater than what it charges for providing the entire operating system (and access to its patents) on WP7. In layman's terms, it's like if I owned a patent on a keyboard and tried to keep you from making a computer to compete with mine by charging a licensing fee for my keyboard patent that was more than the cost of my entire computer. That's what Barnes and Noble is accusing Microsoft of doing.

kenjackson 16y ago
They're characterizing Microsoft as a bully who is attempting (under cover of NDA) to use a limited number of patents (with limited scope) to extract a per-device license that is greater than what it charges for providing the entire operating system (and access to its patents) on WP7. But is that illegal? AFAIK MS is under no obligation to license these patents at all, much less under RAND. And again, MS has no monopoly on WP7, so a comparison to WP7 pricing has nothing to do with their monopoly status on the desktop. In many regards MS is doing this exactly right. They are being aggressive in the mobile space, but they are NOT using their desktop market position to accelerate it. They're not blocking bn.com from IE. They're not bunding WP7 with Windows 7. They're not saying that BN must license these patents if they want to sell Windows 7 as a retailer. To put it another, imagine WP7 was its own company. Would they be doing anything differently? I don't think so. I think they'd still be scrappy trying to leverage their assets in any way to make money and slow down competitors. They aren't using the desktop/server OS monopolies at all for any quid pro quo. What they're doing today is what they'd be able to do as a standalone company. This implies that they're not using their monopoly position as leverage.
- VengefulCynic 16y ago
  You're getting hot and bothered about legal arguments that just aren't there. Other than alleging antitrust implications by Nokia and Microsoft cross-licensing patents from (between them) a dominant position in the mobile phone industry, there aren't any legal arguments about monopolies in this filing. 98% of this filing is about misapplication of patent law and bad patents. This has nothing to do with anti-trust other than one line in one paragraph in a 70-paragraph defense and counterclaim section.