4 ms·

I’m guessing that it will not cost Apple and Google that much money or they would have just bought the patents outright. I expect that Apple and Google were al

I’m guessing that it will not cost Apple and Google that much money or they would have just bought the patents outright. I expect that Apple and Google were already licensing any blackberry patents they needed/would be forced to use. This is big enough that Apple and Google’s operational risk group would have done a calculation to buy if the exposure was less than the sale price. The patent trolling is likely for smaller companies who can’t afford to fight the troll.

troyvit 5y ago
I'm worried about Linux phone operating systems at this point. They seem ripe for this sort of trolling.
- grej 5y ago
  Good question. What actually happens if an open source permissive license product is accused of violating a patent? There’s not exactly a company to sue.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    There is always a company, NGO or individual(s) that is distributing the code.
- hedora 5y ago
  I'm not. There's no point suing for patent infringement unless (a) you want to squash competitors or (b) you think you'll get a bucket of money. Since they were bought up by a nonpracticing entity, (a) doesn't apply. There's no way they'll recoup their $600M investment by going after companies that sell low volume, low margin devices. By the time the Linux phone people have war chests to raid, theses patents will be expired. Rest assured they're targeting some subset of FAANG. The article mentions a patent on charging batteries. Facebook and Amazon sell stuff with batteries in them. Perhaps the trolls think they can extract a few hundred million from Oculus and Fire tablets. Come to think of it, Tesla probably has some cash laying around, and I think their cars can move and also contain batteries. Why should they be allowed to freeload? Similarly, ICE cars use lead acid batteries, don't they? This patent could be a gold mine, and we owe it all to RIM for inventing the rechargeable battery in the mid 1990's! I wonder when the current patent on charging rechargeable batteries expires. I wonder who the PTO will issue the next iteration to, and if they're publicly held...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Jiro 5y ago
    >There's no way they'll recoup their $600M investment by going after companies that sell low volume, low margin devices. Patent trolls sometimes sue people without money in order to get precedents that can be used against people with money.
    - linspace 5y ago
      That's twice (lawfull) evil. It's like the smaller companies are little sacrifices to warm up the summoning.
    - fvv 5y ago
      So the solution is easy, Big player should give their lawyers to the people without money in those proceeds so to not allow such precedents to be created
  - konschubert 5y ago
    If the parents are from the 90s, why have they not expired?
    - PlanckMeasure80 5y ago
      We live a little longer these days
      - konschubert 5y ago
        Patents. I meant Patents.
harles 5y ago
At $600m and most the way to being expired, I don’t think it makes economic sense to only target small players. A patent troll could also find novel ways in which a court might view these patents as applicable that Google and Apple missed.
- culturestate 5y ago
  > A patent troll could also find novel ways in which a court might view these patents as applicable that Google and Apple missed. BlackBerry has been licensing these patents for years; all of the usual suspects have already either agreed to terms or been sued by this point.
  - bastardoperator 5y ago
    Maybe the patent trolls got played?
    - culturestate 5y ago
      Well, the new owners will continue collecting the same royalties that BlackBerry was getting until the patents expire; I'm not sure how much it is for this specific pool, but probably up to a few tens of millions of dollars per year. On top of that, they can always leverage the IP against smaller existing players or new entrants and use it to bump up rates for the rest of their portfolio.
    - dmix 5y ago
      There's always room for financial and legal engineering. I mean that's what a big chunk of Wall St does for a living.
kingcharles 5y ago
This is a good point. $600m is nothing for Apple or Google. Could they have legally bought them without getting into a monopoly mess, though?
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  Maybe BlackBerry tried to charge too much (because they know Apple or Google have deep pockets) and Apple or Google decided it would cost them less to litigate or pay the troll. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if BlackBerry had more lawyers than engineers at this point.
- prepend 5y ago
  I think they couldn’t monetize because of the reputational damage of trying to extract over them. So it would just be defensive. Thus my thinking that they looked it and didn’t think they needed defending.

troyvit 5y ago

I'm worried about Linux phone operating systems at this point. They seem ripe for this sort of trolling.

grej 5y ago
Good question. What actually happens if an open source permissive license product is accused of violating a patent? There’s not exactly a company to sue.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  There is always a company, NGO or individual(s) that is distributing the code.
hedora 5y ago
I'm not. There's no point suing for patent infringement unless (a) you want to squash competitors or (b) you think you'll get a bucket of money. Since they were bought up by a nonpracticing entity, (a) doesn't apply. There's no way they'll recoup their $600M investment by going after companies that sell low volume, low margin devices. By the time the Linux phone people have war chests to raid, theses patents will be expired. Rest assured they're targeting some subset of FAANG. The article mentions a patent on charging batteries. Facebook and Amazon sell stuff with batteries in them. Perhaps the trolls think they can extract a few hundred million from Oculus and Fire tablets. Come to think of it, Tesla probably has some cash laying around, and I think their cars can move and also contain batteries. Why should they be allowed to freeload? Similarly, ICE cars use lead acid batteries, don't they? This patent could be a gold mine, and we owe it all to RIM for inventing the rechargeable battery in the mid 1990's! I wonder when the current patent on charging rechargeable batteries expires. I wonder who the PTO will issue the next iteration to, and if they're publicly held...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Jiro 5y ago
  >There's no way they'll recoup their $600M investment by going after companies that sell low volume, low margin devices. Patent trolls sometimes sue people without money in order to get precedents that can be used against people with money.
  - linspace 5y ago
    That's twice (lawfull) evil. It's like the smaller companies are little sacrifices to warm up the summoning.
  - fvv 5y ago
    So the solution is easy, Big player should give their lawyers to the people without money in those proceeds so to not allow such precedents to be created
- konschubert 5y ago
  If the parents are from the 90s, why have they not expired?
  - PlanckMeasure80 5y ago
    We live a little longer these days
    - konschubert 5y ago
      Patents. I meant Patents.

harles 5y ago

At $600m and most the way to being expired, I don’t think it makes economic sense to only target small players. A patent troll could also find novel ways in which a court might view these patents as applicable that Google and Apple missed.

culturestate 5y ago
> A patent troll could also find novel ways in which a court might view these patents as applicable that Google and Apple missed. BlackBerry has been licensing these patents for years; all of the usual suspects have already either agreed to terms or been sued by this point.
- bastardoperator 5y ago
  Maybe the patent trolls got played?
  - culturestate 5y ago
    Well, the new owners will continue collecting the same royalties that BlackBerry was getting until the patents expire; I'm not sure how much it is for this specific pool, but probably up to a few tens of millions of dollars per year. On top of that, they can always leverage the IP against smaller existing players or new entrants and use it to bump up rates for the rest of their portfolio.
  - dmix 5y ago
    There's always room for financial and legal engineering. I mean that's what a big chunk of Wall St does for a living.

kingcharles 5y ago

This is a good point. $600m is nothing for Apple or Google. Could they have legally bought them without getting into a monopoly mess, though?

908B64B197 5y ago
Maybe BlackBerry tried to charge too much (because they know Apple or Google have deep pockets) and Apple or Google decided it would cost them less to litigate or pay the troll. I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if BlackBerry had more lawyers than engineers at this point.
prepend 5y ago
I think they couldn’t monetize because of the reputational damage of trying to extract over them. So it would just be defensive. Thus my thinking that they looked it and didn’t think they needed defending.