5 ms·
Motorola wins Xbox and Windows 7 ban in Germany
- grovulent 14y agoLudicrous... I really have nothing else to say.
- avar 14y agoSo Motorola Mobility brought the matter to German courts, who agreed to ban those products, but "a US court has banned Motorola from enforcing the action until it considers the matter next week.". How is a ban Motorola has solicited under German law under the jurisdiction of a US court, or am I misunderstanding this?
- option_greek 14y agoThat was for a US ruling on same patents. It happened before this. http://www.slashgear.com/microsoft-found-to-infringe-on-four-motorola-patents-24224383/ http://www.slashgear.com/microsoft-found-to-infringe-on-four...
- loverobots 14y agoMakes no sense to me either but since Motorola is a US company as well, MS might have found an opening. Banning Windows sales in entire Germany is no child's game, if enforced and then reversed Motorola might go bankrupt. Simple as that.
- taligent 14y agoGoogle owns Motorola now.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Tyrannosaurs 14y agoNot yet it doesn't. They're still working on the final elements of the deal (approval in China I believe), though it will almost certainly go through before any such liability might become due. And for clarity, it's Motorola Mobility they're buying, not all of Motorola.
- Tyrannosaurs 14y agoMicrosoft may not be what it once was but they're a big enough beast that I'd be thinking twice about this sort of move. But that's kind of micro level stuff, at the macro level it's just another volley in the on-going patent wars where it seems that lawyers will win and the companies and the consumers lose. Common sense says it will end soon but it really doesn't feel like that's happening.
- beedogs 14y agoCall me a pessimist, but I don't see IP law in general ever getting any better.
- ma2rten 14y agoCall me an optimist. But I think some time soon there will be such a ridiculous lawsuit, that even politicians/the electorate will see that it's time to review IP laws.
- JonoW 14y agoI think the problem is that all the companies involved (Apple, Microsoft, Google etc) are American; if the products of one American company are banned somewhere, another American company will invariably benefit. I think if an American companies products were being banned in the US to the benefit of a non-US company, only then will US law-makers start raising their eyebrows.
- Tyrannosaurs 14y agoI'm not necessarily thinking that the laws will change, just that we'll go back to the situation of a few years ago where enforcement was a little less vigorous. Merely the potential for dumb rather than the ongoing implementation of dumb.
- sek 14y agoGoogle and Microsoft are at war since Eric Schmidt became CEO, so there are two beasts fighting anyway. Microsoft broke the gentleman's agreement by using software patents to cripple Android.
- phoboslab 14y agoI love this. This is what you get for betting on patent encumbered formats. Maybe WebM wasn't such a bad idea after all...
- taligent 14y agoYou don't get it do you. EVERY company in the industry has now been given carte blanche to completely ignore FRAND principles and sue everyone after a standard has been adopted. This is the worst precedent to hit the industry in a long time.
- pavanky 14y agoI am a bit unaware of the situation, but didnt this lawsuit happen after MS sued Motorola over android ?
- shrikant 14y agoYes indeed: http://www.mobiledia.com/news/104161.html http://www.mobiledia.com/news/104161.html Microsoft Wants to Ban Motorola Phones in U.S. "Motorola is infringing our patents and we are confident that the ITC will rule in our favor," said David Howard, Microsoft's deputy general counsel for litigation. "We are vigorously defending ourselves against Microsoft's patent attack business strategy," said Motorola in a responding statement. "We have also brought legal actions of our own in the U.S. and in Europe to address Microsoft's large scale of infringement of Motorola Mobility's patents." He who lives by the sword...
- ZeroGravitas 14y agoNot if it leads to patent-backed FRAND being abandoned for something better, like allowing standards to be freely implemented by anyone at no cost regardless of who claims patents on them and then standards committees can spend their time on engineering not lawyering, politics and FUD.
- phoboslab 14y agoIt's not clear that Motorola didn't offer "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms" for licensing. Microsoft claims licensing would cost them $4bn/year; Motorola disputes this claim. Also, who is to say that $4bn/year isn't "fair" when video is an essential part of Microsofts products? Don't get me wrong, I hate patents as much as everyone else here, but I still think this lawsuit poses as a very nice example of why free video/audio codecs are important. We had the same shit with LZW/GIF patents a decade earlier and all the warnings were ignored and laughed at ("Nerds with tinfoil hats" ~Gruber). Microsoft (and Apple) doesn't deserve better for their arrogant stance on this issue.
- zimbatm 14y ago"It follows a ruling that Microsoft had infringed two patents necessary to offer H.264 video coding and playback." Oh the irony. Wasn't the MPEG LA consortium supposed to guarantee protection against that kind of attack ? Any details on the infringing patents ?
- scott_w 14y agoWhile I don't know the patents, the MPEG-LA can only protect against the patents that are committed to that specific portfolio. Even if Motorola are a member of the MPEG-LA, if they are suing for a patent that they have not committed to the MPEG-LA, then Microsoft have no protection. About the worst that could happen is Motorola get kicked out of MPEG-LA.
- Derbasti 14y agoMan, this is a fucked up world.
- bad_user 14y agoI don't think getting kicked out of MPEG-LA is so easy. If Motorola is a member and does have patents committed to their pool, wouldn't a kick mean that those patents that are submitted would no longer be part of the package? If that's true, then Motorola would have even more bullets. This only goes to show how nobody is protected from patents, even if you're careful about buying licenses.
- jbk 14y agohttp://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx Motorola does not seem to be a licensor of H.264.
- chris_wot 14y agoIt will be interesting to see what happens when Microsoft uninstalls Windows 7 from all those machines. How is this recall going to be done?!?
- roel_v 14y agoThere is no recall, just a sales ban. Actually there is no sales ban yet either - Motorola has been prohibited from enforcing it. This is non-news, in two weeks some solution will be found and very few people will ever know or care about this issue.
- muyuu 14y agoThe irony is that they're able to stop all their security updates, even self-destroy with their home-calling mechanisms. I'd love it if Motorola went all-in about it.
- taligent 14y agoI bet you would love it. But think about it. Motorola can now extort ridiculous royalties from every company that provides: DVD Players, Projectors, Video Cameras, Digital Cameras, Smartphones, Tablets, Operating Systems, Browsers, Portable Media Players, Consoles, TVs, Media Centers, PVRs.
- muyuu 14y agoThe current situation is a joke. No small player can get above the radar at basically anything software or else they risk being sued out of business. Big players calculate their movements because they all have a big portfolio and they reach agreements. Most people cannot resort to this. Hopefully a clusterfuck between two industry giants will cause a fundamental change in the rules of the game. I wish all the devices you mentioned would be outlawed overnight to force a decided reaction. I'm willing to go full OSS and open formats, I'm mostly there anyway. Remember static GIFs? Here's hoping they do enforce all these patents to the fullest.
- beagle3 14y ago
- nextparadigms 14y agoLive by the sword, die by the sword. I don't feel bad for Microsoft. It's just a testament that a patent war helps no one, not even the companies with a lot of patents that were the aggressors. In the end it's just mutual destruction. I mean, Microsoft even went after companies to pay them royalties for ChromeOS...really, Microsoft?! I hope Motorola does the same to them now and asks for royalties for Windows 7. Something tells me they'll get a lot more for it.
- X4 14y agoIt's no news that German courts are favored for patent infringements, because they mostly play well. I've even seen a reportage about this topic, that covers why large companies fight patent lowsuits in Germany. It's because Germany has understood how to capitalize on this "new market". Tax route optimizations, patent-pool leverage, secret partnership agreements, HR Capital squeezers, talent headhunters, innovation buyout..is that out of an "imperators guide to the 21st century"?
- soc88 14y agoIs this based on actual facts or did you just make that up?
- joelthelion 14y ago>Microsoft moved its European software distribution centre from Germany to the Netherlands last month ahead of the verdict to minimise potential disruption. The law doesn't really apply to these software giants, they'll always find a way around it.
- DanBC 14y agoYou see MS obeying the law, causing considerable disruption to their setup (changing a distribution centre from one country to another is pretty big move) and you say that they are "finding a way around it"?
- willvarfar 14y agoIsn't that exactly what MS are doing by moving their operations? "Finding a way around it" does not imply they are avoiding any cost in doing so.
- pgeorgi 14y agoThat's to make sure that the verdict only affects Germany. With their European distribution center in Germany, they couldn't sell in any European country. With this reorganization, they just can't sell in Germany (and any imports will be destroyed by customs if found). (it's also a not-so-subtle hints to politicians, that Microsoft would prefer to have a special exception to the usual rules, otherwise JOBS ARE AT RISK!!!11)
- dthunt 14y agoLinks to patents? I haven't been able to find them. I notice that people are very quick to attack Microsoft here, despite the fact that a great many parties have been touting h.264 as a standard to adopt, and acting like it wasn't a morass of patents and lawsuits waiting to happen. Granted, one of those parties was Microsoft. Depending on what's in the patents at issue, maybe there is a lesson here about making sure that the standards we approve of aren't encumbered by patents.
- andyking 14y agoIs it just me who finds these little spats between huge companies a little tedious? It doesn't affect my life, or my work, if Microsoft or Adobe or Apple takes Google or Motorola or Samsung to court for another expensive round of willy-waving. I find it incredibly hard to want to cheer for any of these organisations, or get behind any of this stuff. These are just big, faceless corporations, each the same as the next, when it comes down to it. It's a bit like supporting professional sports teams, I guess.
- m0nty 14y agoMy "take-away" from all this is that, if this can affect Microsoft so profoundly, how much more damage could be done to startups and small businesses in the technology arena? Most of them couldn't afford the fees to start the legal process, let alone pay for a protracted fight on obscure areas of copyright.
- hef19898 14y agoIt could actually kill a lot of them. Patents are just fine as long as they are used defesivly. If they are not they can ruin everything. Some effects I can imagine: - Potential competitors aren't bought but sued to death. - It could be harder to get founding if your situation is not sure, investors could loose their money Consequence will be that start-ups will become more expensive again...
- rbanffy 14y ago> Patents are just fine as long as they are used defesivly Not really. Good patents are fine, but in order to use a patent defensively, you'll have to defend against something, most likely the abuse of an actual patent (be it a good one or not). And it's certainly sweet to see Microsoft tasting its own poison. They have extorted just about every Android set maker (or Linux embedder) with a secret list of patents they paid Barnes & Noble US$ 300 million to keep secret. BTW, this seems to be the soft spot of their armor - future litigants should press hard for the list to be made public. Microsoft will settle before risking exposing a weak hand.
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- nickik 14y agoIt like with poletics at one point you just have to laught because nothing makes any sence anymore. It just ... Its not this case but the general state of these laws.
- hef19898 14y agoThats the patent version of what would have happened if the US and USSR had started throwing nukes around... I always thought patents were there to protect against such attacks, a balance of awe and destruction. But who the heck was stupid enough to start that? Seriously, replacing development and business operations by law suites only will get you so far. Maybe I should switch careers and become a patent lawyer!
- Retric 14y agoFailing companies have no reason to avoid the patent wars.
- zschallz 14y agoReminds me of grain/food aid given to the USSR during hard times. Even the Cold War US was afraid of what could happen with weapons of mass destruction during desperate times.
- beagle3 14y ago> Thats the patent version of what would have happened if the US and USSR had started throwing nukes around... Not even remotely. The damage so far is measured in legal expenses (a few million dollars, chump change), and headlines. They can stop at any second, and can in fact reach some licensing agreement that would make both stronger (MS because their are now immune, Motorola because they can go on to other fish with the precedent that "Microsoft settled because our patents are so strong. You want to fight with us?"). When you start throwing nukes around, you cannot fix the damage so quickly, and you definitely don't come out stronger. > Seriously, replacing development and business operations by law suites only will get you so far. far enough for 99% of the companies out there, unfortunately. They are in the business for the money, not technology advancement, or the betterment of mankind. > Maybe I should switch careers and become a patent lawyer! Selling your own soul can produce good income, but potentially comes with the hefty price tag of losing your soul.
- hef19898 14y agoThats the patent version of what would have happened if the US and USSR had started throwing nukes around... I always thought patents were there to protect against such attacks, a balance of awe and destruction. But who the heck was stupid enough to start that? Seriously, replacing development and business operations by law suites only will get you so far. Maybe I should switch careers and become a patent lawyer!
- pmjordan 14y agoOkay, someone please explain this to me: I thought a few years back we had all this uproar about the EU wanting to introduce patentability of software. They eventually backed down, if I remember correctly. Now a German court rules that Windows 7, a piece of software, infringes upon a patent. What?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- pavanky 14y agoagain, this is probably a kick back from Motorola for Microsoft going after them[1]. You can't expect to be a bully against a company that has been a good arsenal of patents (Google bought them for this), and not expect to be sued back. Bottom line: Microsoft was being a troll on Android. Motorola kicked some ass by blocking their two big products in probably their second largest market. [1] http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20018305-56.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20018305-56.html
- white_devil 14y agoWhat's actually a bit worrying about this, is that the scourge of sleazy greed-lawsuits has spread to Europe. It used to be a purely American phenomenon.
- pjmlp 14y agoMaybe only with such actions, the patent law finally gets reformed.
- MarlonPro 14y agoMotorola wins. Germans lose :-(
- TomGullen 14y ago> Microsoft has said that if it met all of Motorola's demands it would face an annual bill of $4bn (£2.5bn). Eh? Is this their defence?