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To defend Android, Google must attack software patents
- dlikhten 15y agoI propose we write an android/iphone game for that. As the android bot attacks patents. With the last boss being balmer who will throw "developers" at the little android's shield of awesomeness. It'll be mortal combat meets zelda. Who's in?
- tdfx 15y agoI'd like to see them take that $4bn they would've spent on Nortel patents and use it for a patent reform campaign. I'm sure that kind of money could buy a lot of votes in DC.
- andybak 15y agoThe fact that your last sentence is uncontroversial is really depressing. Everyone accepts that 'lobbying' is a polite word for 'bribery' and should be unacceptable in a modern democracy. We should all be on the damn streets about this.
- GrooveStomp 15y agoI completely agree with you. My sister in law was talking about working for a high-profile lobbying group because "That's how real political change happens." I pretty much felt sick to my stomach right then and there. Unfortunately, most of us (myself included) realize that's just the way things are now. I'm not defending this position - just commenting on it.
- nodata 15y agoThat's just the way things are and nobody cares, or at least: no-one visible cares. The only people who appear to be speaking out on issues like this are Anonymous. What does that say?
- shareme 15y agoyes, but lobbists determine which streets get paved..
- rickmode 15y agoIn the US, limiting lobbying is tough (impossible?) without undermining the First Amendment right to petition. I totally agree lobbying is a problem - perhaps one of the largest (along with our two party political polarization). A solution that doesn't break the US Constitution would be awesome. (Edit: added second paragraph.)
- praptak 15y agoThis thought, expanded (Lawrence Lessig on the subject:) http://www.thenation.com/article/how-get-our-democracy-back?rel=emailNation http://www.thenation.com/article/how-get-our-democracy-back?...
- r00fus 15y agoThough I agree with your stance, the Citizens United supreme court case basically made it law that "money is speech". Some folks knew the Roberts supreme court would essentially sell the US to corporate interests back in 2005 when he was confirmed.
- orangecat 15y agoYes, I look back fondly on the innocent days of 2009 when corporations couldn't influence politics. Citizens United was a nonprofit organization specifically formed to express the views of its members. You can't stop that without trampling all over the 1st Amendment. And you really wouldn't like the negation of "money is speech". Sure, you can support candidate Smith: just don't spend any money in the process, including but not limited to campaign supplies, web hosting, and the imputed value of your labor.
- yuhong 15y agoWell, the biggest problem IMO is not lobbying itself, but the campaign contributions which often really is bribery.
- aphexairlines 15y agoHow else do you propose anyone can put an end to the software patent system?
- gvb 15y agoWhile I agree with your sentiment, buying votes in DC is not the best approach IMHO. I would like to see them indemnify their partners and then go berserker on the patent protection racket mafia. [added] Google is in a pretty unique position to do this: 1) They have relatively few patents, so destroying software patents would cause little collateral damage to them. 2) They have financial resources, with $4B set aside for purchasing (or destroying) software patents. 3) They have a lot of smart people resources (in house and hired guns) - the Google v. Oracle lawsuit is showing this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker
- dpatru 15y agoPatents are just one of many ways that government destroys and prevents wealth. Government is increasingly a net loss when it grows beyond providing basic protections from physical violence and a trustworthy, competent judiciary. Long-term, Google might better spend its money working to reduce the overall size of government by funding Austrian educational efforts and libertarian candidates.
- wccrawford 15y ago"That is, Google could easily have gone higher with its bid: why didn't it?" ... Rich people get rich by spending wisely. Just because Google -has- money doesn't mean it should spend it on the first thing that comes along. If they didn't buy something, it's because they thought the price was too high for the value it brought to them. It's pretty simple economics.
- NolF 15y agoThe Apple consortium with Microsoft, RIM et al. can afford to go much higher up (have up to $100billion combined in cash. Intel+Google do have large deep pockets but how far could they take the cost up? Also wouldn't making it more expensive provided an added incentive to litigate or impose a licencing scheme to pay for the costs At the end of the day, Google has to start to have a far more proactive approach protecting Android and Android related cases that essentially are forcing manufacturers to pay up for licences essentially for patent protection via Microsoft :/
- dexen 15y agoThis. Also, the value of patent pool may be vastly different to the consortium than to Google. Basically, the value reflects how the buyer evaluates competitor's competetitive strength. In this case, it may be the consortium considers Google a very strong competitor, while Google considers the consortium a somewhat less troubling competition.
- Daniel14 15y agoOf course, but what I think the author meant to say, was that owning those patents should have been worth more than $4.5 billion to Google, as they are crucial to Android's success. And deplorably, I think he's right.
- nextparadigms 15y agoIf Google wants to abolish patents, they'll need a lot of companies to support them. But surely some of these companies will want to help: http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/mobilelawsuits.jpg http://www.geek.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/mobilelawsuit...
- va_coder 15y agoI'm starting to realize that the success of Android is, in part, a triumph of open source and that's got people scared. And now their attacking it with everything they've got.
- roc 15y agoIt has nothing to do with the Open Source part and everything to do with the "triumph" part. Android devices are selling very well. Its competitors couldn't care less how it's built or by whom. Their response is the same regardless: they use every tool in the shed to not only make themselves better, but to act as a drag on their competitors.
- martythemaniak 15y agoOpen has a lot to do with it - Android is a great OS by itself but because it's free, it has hurt RIM, MS and Apple's profits quite a bit. Hence why they've banded up and decided to throw everything they have at it.
- roc 15y agoDo you really think they'd throw anything less at it, if it were closed source?
- orangecat 15y agoI expect Apple would much prefer iOS to have a duopoly with WP7 than with Android. Open platforms lead to messy disruptive innovations that can quickly dislodge established players.
- Steko 15y agoThat would have been 6 more years of commercial work for John Hodgman and Justin Long.
- deleted 15y ago
- monochromatic 15y agoSure, they could throw $4B into a lobbying campaign against software patents. But there's no great reason to think it would be successful, and it probably wouldn't have any effect on previous patents. On the other hand, that would make a hell of a warchest for defending themselves in infringement suits...
- flocial 15y agoBut how would they convince stockholders? Spending $4 billion on a bid for patents where the ouctome is known versus a campaign that might work but goes against the system are very different things.
- monochromatic 15y agoI agree. That's why I'm saying using the money to defend against infringement suits as they arise makes more sense, instead of using it to try to change the system as a whole.
- flocial 15y agoI replied to the wrong comment. Totally agree with you.
- ZeSmith 15y agoI wonder if it would be possible to claim that patents used in this way actually violate antitrust laws.
- petegrif 15y agoNo it wouldn't. Patents are deeply enshrined in US law and a patent holder is perfectly within their rights to pursue those infringing on their rights. In fact that is the only right they have!!
- petegrif 15y agoThe writer, who has indeed attacked software patents on previous occasions, omits a key step in his argument. para 3 "Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that Android infringes on anyone's patents.:" This is absolutely correct. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't either. And without examining the facts (a matter requiring a significant effort of time and effort and no small familiarity with patent law) it is impossible to know a priori whether the patents have been infringed upon. "It simply indicates that the companies in question have done the sums and decided that it is probably cheaper in the long run to pay licensing fees now rather than risk losing a long and expensive patent infringement suit and end up paying much more later. " True. But without evidence and argument we still don't know if they settled because they (a) although they sincerely believed they were not infringing they didn't want to risk the legal process, or (b) they did believe they were infringing and whilst they would much rather not pay it was pointless to resist. All we can be confident of therefore is that (a) in either case their assessment of the risk has certainly been expertly evaluated by the best IP attorneys money can buy, and (b) those attorneys advised them to settle so they are unlikely to have been crystal clear it was blindingly obvious there was no infringement. "In other words, these deals are mostly about the skewed incentives of the US patent system" This is a false conclusion. This statement is not a reasonable consequence of anything that proceeded it. It is rather a statement of the writer's opinion of the patent system. He has twisted the argument, with no supporting evidence, to support his cause. The fact is that from the material he presents (practically nothing) we cannot draw any meaningful conclusions about the state of the patent system. He and/or we may have prior opinions about the subject but this paragraph is just another opinion masquerading as an argument.
- Joeri 15y agoOf course you can draw meaningful conclusions. Given that all popular smartphone OS market players are in cross-licensing deals or lawsuits related to patents, and that a single licensing deal can cost $10 or more per handset, you can conclude that it's too expensive for small players to enter that market (since they will have no patent portfolio to negotiate with). This means that the smartphone OS market is effectively closed. That's harmful, no matter how you twist the argument.
- petegrif 15y agoThe really big unaddressed question in this post is whether Google actually does have to defend Android. After all, $10 per handset is nothing like as much as the cost of developing, maintaining and supporting your own smartphone OS. We're not talking feature phone here, this is a sizeable piece of sophisticated software that is in competition (primarily) with iOS. (Bear in mind that Apple can amortize its enormous development expense over a very large number of handsets!) I suppose you could argue that it gives MS some kind of an advantage with their OS but that rather ignores the investment MS had to make developing their OS. I am certainly prepared to be persuaded that somehow fighting the patents in question is a life or death matter for Android but so far I haven't seen a convincing evidence that it's true.
- aphexairlines 15y ago$10 to MS, $10 to Apple, $10 to Nokia, $10 to RIM, $10 to Qualcomm, $10 to Oracle, $10 to nvidia, $10 to IBM, etc...
- petegrif 15y ago?? I'm sorry. I don't understand your point. Could you explain it for me.
- aphexairlines 15y agoI mean that paying off $10 to Microsoft doesn't scale because very soon you'll be paying several others with similarly slightly-relevant patents and who are all already either in court, threatening to take their cases to court, or have a history of not being shy about doing that.
- petegrif 15y agoFor major players I think it is likely to scale precisely because of the pervasiveness of patents in the area. Those companies with substantial patent portfolios (many of them as you pointed out) gain nothing by suing each other and so most of the time they don't. The case that would indeed be a concern would be if there were a company with no patent portfolio that the others could all pile onto and freeze out. This is possible but it does raise the question of how Apple was able to enter a market with such heavy existing IP holdings. A point worth remembering is that patents don't have to stop you innovating but rather oblige you to redirect your innovation. So if you want to build another 'me too' product there may well be IP issues to navigate but if you do want to truly innovate it is unlikely to be a major concern of the kind you describe with everyone else holding patents in the area.
- jdq 15y ago"To defend Android, Google must attack software patents" But then Google jeopardizes its own search patents.
- erikpukinskis 15y agoMore than any other software company, I think that Google's patents are purely defensive. I don't think Google wants to sue anyone. I think that's largely true for Microsoft and Apple as well. Although Apple does get a little snippy when people copy too closely. And Oracle seems to relish a good lawsuit.