9 ms·

Apple And Microsoft Behind Patent Troll Armed With Thousands Of Nortel Patents

189 points by pooriaazimi 14y ago

stanleydrew 14y ago
This is really annoying. I lost track of what was happening with the government investigation into the Nortel bidding but apparently they silently let it slide. And now we have this. Is there realistically any chance of the DoJ or FTC stepping in here again to make the parent consortium (i.e. MS, Apple, RIM, etc. not Rockstar) answer for this?
- luriel 14y ago
  Patents are government granted monopolies, to expect the government to then go back and untangle the ensuing cartels might sound fair, but I suspect it is naive or over optimistic at best.
moldbug 14y ago
When I first heard about the setuid patent, I thought it was pretty cool. That was, I don't know, 1989. I think it was 1992 or so before it was really clear that patents were the true and final nemesis of my chosen profession. By "clear," I mean "obvious to anyone not in denial." Of course there's a lot of denial. By 1999 I worked for a company that routinely filed what we called "linked list... on a phone!" patents. Unwired Planet - the geniuses behind WAP. In fact, I think there never would have been a WAP Forum if we hadn't muscled Motorola, Nokia and Ericsson with our HDML patents. (These crap patents probably provide most of the remaining market capitalization of UP's remnant, Openwave.) Across this continuum, I have heard a continuous strand of discourse denying that there's a pit at the end of this tunnel. This discourse relies existentially on the belief that just because people could be evil, doesn't mean they will be evil. Which is true, but only in the short run. Facilis descensus Averni.
- pyre 14y ago
  I think it was 1992 or so before it was really clear that patents were the true and final nemesis of my chosen profession. The real issue is that patents favor large players (even if they are 'branching out' and aren't an incumbent in a particular area) to the detriment of smaller players.
  - beernutz 14y ago
    I think the REAL issue, is that they lock up IDEAS. Ideas by themselves are inherently worthless. It's the EXECUTION that matters. Everyone has ideas. Some are great, some suck. The idea by itself is really meaningless until someone does something with it. Ideas, to me, are like knowledge. They should never be locked up, and should be freely shared.
    - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
      Patents aren't supposed to lock up abstract ideas, they are supposed to unlock concrete implementations of ideas (unlock by giving details of the implementation to the public in exchange for a short-term monopoly). There are good arguments either way for whether this is a good idea, but make the ideas far more abstract (like software) and add incredibly short technology cycles (like software), and there is no doubt it's a bad idea.
      - makomk 14y ago
        Patents have never actually worked that way though. For instance, take a look at the history of the early US automobile industry sometime.
        beernutz 14y ago
        That is an excellent point! The way they are used vs. the way they are MEANT to be used, seem to be worlds apart.
- luriel 14y ago
  It is funny that the Unix team at Bell Labs ended up realizing the setuid was not such a good idea after all, and replaced it with a much better design in Plan 9 (meanwhile this has been pretty much ignored back in *nix land, where many limitations, like the lack of usable private namespaces, and security issues are due to setuid): http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/auth http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/auth Somewhere there is a comment by Rob Pike (which I can't find now) about how it was ironic that the only thing patented in Unix early on turned out to be such a bad idea after all. This historical notes aside, that we allow this software patent insanity to go on is scary and depressing. The billions of dollars being wasted (not to mention the amount of time and other precious resources) because of patents is staggering.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- h84ru3a 14y ago
  Patent trolling as a business, which IV has proven is viable, relies on a precondition: patent litigation must remain expensive. In specific, it must be prohibitively expensive to determine whether each and every asserted claim in each and every patent asserted against an "infringer" is valid. This determination can only be done via patent litigation. What happens if this precondition does not exist? The patent trolling business will fail. This is because everyone knows most, maybe even all, of the claims in the patent portfolios the patent troll has amassed are not valid. They are potentially worthless. Companies simply do not know which ones are valid and which ones are not. And it's too expensive to find out. So companies are willing to negotiate instead of engaging in patent litigation. If we were to make patent litigation so inexpensive that anyone could afford to "call the patent troll's bluff", these ridiculous patents would never be filed for much less asserted. In other words, if we could have an inexpensive determination of what claims are valid and which ones are not valid, we could separate the wheat from the chaff. And these enormous patent portfolios would shrink down to size. Just the wheat. If there is any. It would be difficult to make hollow threats and engage in IV-style extortion. It is only the expense of finding out whether a claim is valid (through litigation) that makes patent trolling a viable business. Maybe patent lawyers managed to get the best of Myrvold while he was a CTO, and he believes by opening the gates for a vibrant patent trolling industry, he will make life easier for every technology company in the future. All they have to do is pay some protection money and their worries will be gone.
- h84ru3a 14y ago
  "the belief that just because people could be evil, doesn't mean they will be evil" You might attribute the problem to immaturity. Behold the attitude in this thread: finger-pointing. A patent is not a right or an obligation to produce anything. In truth, it is a right to sue others. But surely, that is not how most patent applicants think about patents when they apply for them. We expect they are have intentions to produce something. We expect they will have products or services to sell or license. People on the web discussing patents are apt to mention government-granted monopolies and pull out quotes from the US Constitution about promoting the progress of useful science and the arts. Clearly, these people are not just thinking about patents as rights to sue: "If I obtain a lot of patents I can start threatening to sue other companies." They are thinking about companies that are planning to produce something and bring it to the marketplace, and the competition those companies might face. But the IT industry is showing us that indeed there are people who are thinking of patents as rights to sue. Thye even think this somehow constitutes a legtimate "business". Because that is the ONLY way they are using patents. "Patent troll" is a term coined by someone in the IT industry. That's where it was born. It's proliferation as a "business model" is being led by a former Microsoft employee. As is true of technology, a patent portfolio is not inherently "evil". It depends on how it is used. The IT industry is showing us how to use patents in the very worst way. I call it immaturity. Steve Jobs throwing a hissy fit and calling Eric Schmidt from Burning Man about Android. The problem is not patents. It is how the IT industry is using them.
culturestate 14y ago
"Once again, we see that these two large companies are using the patent system not to innovate, but to stop up and coming competitors from innovating." Apple and Microsoft aren't the only "large companies" involved here - Sony, Ericsson, and RIM shouldn't get a free pass just because they don't look as good in a title.
- brudgers 14y ago
  With Google pursuing Microsoft's Xbox via Motorola Mobility, all the cool kids are doing it. For all the hand ringing, the technology industry has been doing this since the days of Mr. Bell (and as a footnote, helping startups file patents was one of the original marketing points of YC just a few years ago).
  - stanleydrew 14y ago
    Do you have a reference for the Google/Xbox claim? Just curious because I haven't heard anything about that.
    - sethbannon 14y ago
      +1. I'd be interested to see a reference to this. Haven't heard anything about it.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - mikerg87 14y ago
      I think they may be referring to this: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/motorola-secures-injunction-against-windows-7-xbox-in-germany/4551 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/motorola-secures-injunction...
    - option_greek 14y ago
      It was being pursued by Motorola even before Google bought it. Its part of defense against Microsoft's shakeup of android manufacturers. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404810,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404810,00.asp
Tycho 14y ago
What evidence would it take to convince naysayers that patents are generally a force for good?
- quadratic_r 14y ago
  I dunno, engineers driving Ferraris around or something? Oh no, they will be called 'patent trolls' then.
  - CamperBob2 14y ago
    The only engineers with Ferraris that I know are either targets of patent trolls, or have successfully escaped any involvement with the patent system one way or the other.
- unimpressive 14y ago
  Even if they are it doesn't matter. People aren't going to brush off the general badness of software patents by saying to themselves "But it's okay, patents are a good thing in the long run." That's called denial, and it isn't just a river in Egypt.
- orangecat 14y ago
  Necessary but not sufficient: technology that wouldn't have been developed if not for the ability to patent it. There are plenty of examples for drugs, and approximately zero for software as far as I'm aware.
  - luriel 14y ago
    I'm not convinced about the drugs argument, there is plenty of evidence that the chemical and medical industries have worked very well without patents in the past. See also this about patents in the pharmaceutical industry: http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/ip.ch.9.m1004.pdf http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/ip.ch.9.m1004.pdf In any case, what is beyond all doubt and all question is that patents in the software industry are a totally insane and extremely harmful thing, and is only getting worse.
  - 14y ago
pg 14y ago
I could see why Microsoft would do something like this, but why Apple? Does anyone know?
- 3am 14y ago
  I don't know any better than you, but it looks a lot like it's intended to harass Google (edit: without dragging down Apple's brand)
  - SkyMarshal 14y ago
    That was my first thought as well, but Rockstar is not just going after Google but carpet-bombing the entire technology world (phones, routers, etc - anything). So why would Apple be on board with that?
    - 3am 14y ago
      Collateral damage?
- buster 14y ago
  Quite easy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxoAF0Jvhqc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxoAF0Jvhqc http://mashable.com/2012/04/05/steve-jobs-larry-page/ http://mashable.com/2012/04/05/steve-jobs-larry-page/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57409917-37/steve-jobs-really-was-mad-about-android-says-biographer/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57409917-37/steve-jobs-rea... etc etc etc
  - pg 14y ago
    Oh, was it Steve's anger about Android copying iOS? I could see that sort of bitterness making a company behave in a way that would otherwise be out of character. Is that the consensus about why Apple did this? If it is, could Apple undo the damage now that it's in more moderate hands? Or have they effectively set off a giant, evil autonomous robot that can't be stopped?
    - 14y ago
nextparadigms 14y ago
Didn't they make a deal with DoJ and the judges from Canada that they won't do something like this, if they get the Nortel patents?
- mthoms 14y ago
  They seem to have found a loophole by creating a new company to own the patents.
dain 14y ago
Posted because of hypercritical.
- pooriaazimi 14y ago
  Exactly! None of the previous submissions had made it to the front page, so I googled for "rockstar apple patent troll" and submitted this link and totally forgot about it afterwards. Now I woke up and saw it's on the front page and I'm very happy that many are now familiar with the issue :-)
sad_panda 14y ago
The nightmare never ends.
mindjiver 14y ago
I doubt there are many software patents in this portfolio. Most of these patents most likely cover the L1/L2 protocols for LTE and other wireless standards. These are normally available through FRAND agreements. Disclaimer: I work for one of the companies that bought the patents.
- andrewem 14y ago
  I'm totally serious about this question: how do you feel about the company you work for doing this?
  - mindjiver 14y ago
    Personally I don't approve of _software_ patents but these ones don't bother me that much. I don't really see this different from all the other patent licensing deals we have with the rest of the (wireless) industry. These are part of the way these standards are developed (available under FRAND licenses) and licensed. If you want to bring in a moral perspective I personally feel that a bigger problem is what to do about "legal intercept" features. Especially when selling equipment to countries with regimes that want to misuse them. But lets say this included some trivial (or non-trivial) software patent and this jointly owned company started trolling a lot of individual developers and/or smaller companies. Then I would feel different about this.
    - pooriaazimi 14y ago
      > bigger problem is what to do about "legal intercept" features. Especially when selling equipment to countries with regimes that want to misuse them. As an Iranian (whose government routinely and 'legally' intercepts everything and everyone), I can't agree more with this sentiment :)
junto 14y ago
I'm quite happy for these trolls to go crazy on this one. Patents need to get so insane that eventually we might stop and say WTF are we playing at. Bed made lying in it. Software patents don't work, they never have.
18pfsmt 14y ago
I submitted a story midweek about this same topic and was wondering why nobody else seemed to be concerned. I'm happy to see that is not the case because I don't think anyone in our industry is helped by protectionist maneuvers like this. People wonder why there are fewer hardware startups, but I can tell you the hardware guys I know have expressed concerns over patent issues for not helping me work on a low-power server (and I need their help because I'm too dumb to do board layout on my own).
- scott_s 14y ago
  What makes it to, and stays on, the front page has a large random component.
sevenstar 14y ago
→Disgusting
shenberg 14y ago
One odd thought crossed my mind - most proprietary software you use has a clause prohibiting reverse engineering in the license agreement, and here they are admitting to the world that they routinely ignore said license agreements. Are they making themselves liable for copyright infringement here since they're using the software without a license? How enforceable are those "no reverse engineering" clauses anyway?
h84ru3a 14y ago
Here's an approach that might move us toward "disarmament". (Assuming that we wanted to achieve it.) Make patent litigation "dirt cheap". Everyone involved in this game knows most of these patent claims would never make it through litigation without being invalidated (i.e. from that point forward, not even worth the paper they are printed on). We just do not know which ones would survive. We do not know which are the "valid claims". Everyone also knows that patent litigation is very expensive. It's too expensive to answer the question-- Is this a valid claim?-- for each and every claim in each and every patent asserted against an "infringer". And so it follows that by threatening a competitor ("infringer") with patent litigation, you can bring them to the negotiation stage, quite easily. They will be willing to make a deal. Litigation puts patent claims under a higher level of scrutiny that the patent office gives them. For ease of reference, let's call it a "review". If we make it inexpensive to do this "review", we can "disarm" these patents. We won't have to go through the "review" process for each and every defensive patent. Because no one will be willing to negotiate based on threats when the cost to "call the patent troll's bluff" is affordable to anyone. Patent litigation (the "review") is expensive. It is prohbitively expensive to separate the wheat from the chaff. This condition is a prerequisite for "patent trolling" to be a viable "business". And it is a viable business. A former Microsoft CTO has used his own wealth to prove that to us. Opening the gates for a vibrant patent troll industry to emerge. Let us be thankful to him for moving us in the right direction. What a "brilliant" man is he.
losethos 14y ago
God is just. God says... CIA I_made_it_that_way CIA persistence What persistence persistence vengeance grumble where's_the_love umm_the_other_answer a_screw_loose are_you_deaf I'm_thrilled I_could_swear what's_it_to_you Enough outrageous joking like_like hello what's_the_plan I'm_beginning_to_wonder petty you're_so_screwed walking what_do_you_expect do_over application these_cans_are_defective computers just_lovely little_fish whatcha_talkin'_'bout furious commanded didn't_I_say_that after_a_break fake kludge kludge whoop_there_it_is what's_the_plan heads_I_win_tails_you_lose face_palm in_practice not_in_my_wildest_dreams na_na make_my_day I'll_get_right_on_it rich goods baffling hard_working oh_oh Hicc_up heaven Vegas that's_all_folks I'm_the_boss Hicc_up money beam_me_up umm_what_now I'm_the_boss I_could_be_wrong maybe_I_didn't_make_it_clear how_about take_the_day_off so_let_it_be_written close_your_eyes depressing are_you_deaf never_happy quit_it
h84ru3a 14y ago
From the Wire article: "It was run by friendly Canadians who did not want to antagonize partners and customers by suing them." Oh well, the patents have found their way into the right hands now so it's all good. Let the American-style antagonism begin.
chmike 14y ago
You have an idea ? There is a patent for it! Apple.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

189 points by pooriaazimi 14y ago

This is really annoying. I lost track of what was happening with the government investigation into the Nortel bidding but apparently they silently let it slide. And now we have this. Is there realistically any chance of the DoJ or FTC stepping in here again to make the parent consortium (i.e. MS, Apple, RIM, etc. not Rockstar) answer for this?

luriel 14y ago
Patents are government granted monopolies, to expect the government to then go back and untangle the ensuing cartels might sound fair, but I suspect it is naive or over optimistic at best.

moldbug 14y ago

When I first heard about the setuid patent, I thought it was pretty cool. That was, I don't know, 1989. I think it was 1992 or so before it was really clear that patents were the true and final nemesis of my chosen profession. By "clear," I mean "obvious to anyone not in denial." Of course there's a lot of denial. By 1999 I worked for a company that routinely filed what we called "linked list... on a phone!" patents. Unwired Planet - the geniuses behind WAP. In fact, I think there never would have been a WAP Forum if we hadn't muscled Motorola, Nokia and Ericsson with our HDML patents. (These crap patents probably provide most of the remaining market capitalization of UP's remnant, Openwave.) Across this continuum, I have heard a continuous strand of discourse denying that there's a pit at the end of this tunnel. This discourse relies existentially on the belief that just because people could be evil, doesn't mean they will be evil. Which is true, but only in the short run. Facilis descensus Averni.

pyre 14y ago
I think it was 1992 or so before it was really clear that patents were the true and final nemesis of my chosen profession. The real issue is that patents favor large players (even if they are 'branching out' and aren't an incumbent in a particular area) to the detriment of smaller players.
- beernutz 14y ago
  I think the REAL issue, is that they lock up IDEAS. Ideas by themselves are inherently worthless. It's the EXECUTION that matters. Everyone has ideas. Some are great, some suck. The idea by itself is really meaningless until someone does something with it. Ideas, to me, are like knowledge. They should never be locked up, and should be freely shared.
  - SoftwareMaven 14y ago
    Patents aren't supposed to lock up abstract ideas, they are supposed to unlock concrete implementations of ideas (unlock by giving details of the implementation to the public in exchange for a short-term monopoly). There are good arguments either way for whether this is a good idea, but make the ideas far more abstract (like software) and add incredibly short technology cycles (like software), and there is no doubt it's a bad idea.
    - makomk 14y ago
      Patents have never actually worked that way though. For instance, take a look at the history of the early US automobile industry sometime.
      - beernutz 14y ago
        That is an excellent point! The way they are used vs. the way they are MEANT to be used, seem to be worlds apart.
luriel 14y ago
It is funny that the Unix team at Bell Labs ended up realizing the setuid was not such a good idea after all, and replaced it with a much better design in Plan 9 (meanwhile this has been pretty much ignored back in *nix land, where many limitations, like the lack of usable private namespaces, and security issues are due to setuid): http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/auth http://doc.cat-v.org/plan_9/4th_edition/papers/auth Somewhere there is a comment by Rob Pike (which I can't find now) about how it was ironic that the only thing patented in Unix early on turned out to be such a bad idea after all. This historical notes aside, that we allow this software patent insanity to go on is scary and depressing. The billions of dollars being wasted (not to mention the amount of time and other precious resources) because of patents is staggering.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
h84ru3a 14y ago
Patent trolling as a business, which IV has proven is viable, relies on a precondition: patent litigation must remain expensive. In specific, it must be prohibitively expensive to determine whether each and every asserted claim in each and every patent asserted against an "infringer" is valid. This determination can only be done via patent litigation. What happens if this precondition does not exist? The patent trolling business will fail. This is because everyone knows most, maybe even all, of the claims in the patent portfolios the patent troll has amassed are not valid. They are potentially worthless. Companies simply do not know which ones are valid and which ones are not. And it's too expensive to find out. So companies are willing to negotiate instead of engaging in patent litigation. If we were to make patent litigation so inexpensive that anyone could afford to "call the patent troll's bluff", these ridiculous patents would never be filed for much less asserted. In other words, if we could have an inexpensive determination of what claims are valid and which ones are not valid, we could separate the wheat from the chaff. And these enormous patent portfolios would shrink down to size. Just the wheat. If there is any. It would be difficult to make hollow threats and engage in IV-style extortion. It is only the expense of finding out whether a claim is valid (through litigation) that makes patent trolling a viable business. Maybe patent lawyers managed to get the best of Myrvold while he was a CTO, and he believes by opening the gates for a vibrant patent trolling industry, he will make life easier for every technology company in the future. All they have to do is pay some protection money and their worries will be gone.
h84ru3a 14y ago
"the belief that just because people could be evil, doesn't mean they will be evil" You might attribute the problem to immaturity. Behold the attitude in this thread: finger-pointing. A patent is not a right or an obligation to produce anything. In truth, it is a right to sue others. But surely, that is not how most patent applicants think about patents when they apply for them. We expect they are have intentions to produce something. We expect they will have products or services to sell or license. People on the web discussing patents are apt to mention government-granted monopolies and pull out quotes from the US Constitution about promoting the progress of useful science and the arts. Clearly, these people are not just thinking about patents as rights to sue: "If I obtain a lot of patents I can start threatening to sue other companies." They are thinking about companies that are planning to produce something and bring it to the marketplace, and the competition those companies might face. But the IT industry is showing us that indeed there are people who are thinking of patents as rights to sue. Thye even think this somehow constitutes a legtimate "business". Because that is the ONLY way they are using patents. "Patent troll" is a term coined by someone in the IT industry. That's where it was born. It's proliferation as a "business model" is being led by a former Microsoft employee. As is true of technology, a patent portfolio is not inherently "evil". It depends on how it is used. The IT industry is showing us how to use patents in the very worst way. I call it immaturity. Steve Jobs throwing a hissy fit and calling Eric Schmidt from Burning Man about Android. The problem is not patents. It is how the IT industry is using them.

culturestate 14y ago

"Once again, we see that these two large companies are using the patent system not to innovate, but to stop up and coming competitors from innovating." Apple and Microsoft aren't the only "large companies" involved here - Sony, Ericsson, and RIM shouldn't get a free pass just because they don't look as good in a title.

brudgers 14y ago
With Google pursuing Microsoft's Xbox via Motorola Mobility, all the cool kids are doing it. For all the hand ringing, the technology industry has been doing this since the days of Mr. Bell (and as a footnote, helping startups file patents was one of the original marketing points of YC just a few years ago).
- stanleydrew 14y ago
  Do you have a reference for the Google/Xbox claim? Just curious because I haven't heard anything about that.
  - sethbannon 14y ago
    +1. I'd be interested to see a reference to this. Haven't heard anything about it.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - mikerg87 14y ago
    I think they may be referring to this: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/motorola-secures-injunction-against-windows-7-xbox-in-germany/4551 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/motorola-secures-injunction...
  - option_greek 14y ago
    It was being pursued by Motorola even before Google bought it. Its part of defense against Microsoft's shakeup of android manufacturers. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404810,00.asp http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404810,00.asp

Tycho 14y ago

What evidence would it take to convince naysayers that patents are generally a force for good?

quadratic_r 14y ago
I dunno, engineers driving Ferraris around or something? Oh no, they will be called 'patent trolls' then.
- CamperBob2 14y ago
  The only engineers with Ferraris that I know are either targets of patent trolls, or have successfully escaped any involvement with the patent system one way or the other.
unimpressive 14y ago
Even if they are it doesn't matter. People aren't going to brush off the general badness of software patents by saying to themselves "But it's okay, patents are a good thing in the long run." That's called denial, and it isn't just a river in Egypt.
orangecat 14y ago
Necessary but not sufficient: technology that wouldn't have been developed if not for the ability to patent it. There are plenty of examples for drugs, and approximately zero for software as far as I'm aware.
- luriel 14y ago
  I'm not convinced about the drugs argument, there is plenty of evidence that the chemical and medical industries have worked very well without patents in the past. See also this about patents in the pharmaceutical industry: http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/ip.ch.9.m1004.pdf http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/papers/ip.ch.9.m1004.pdf In any case, what is beyond all doubt and all question is that patents in the software industry are a totally insane and extremely harmful thing, and is only getting worse.
- 14y ago

pg 14y ago

I could see why Microsoft would do something like this, but why Apple? Does anyone know?

3am 14y ago
I don't know any better than you, but it looks a lot like it's intended to harass Google (edit: without dragging down Apple's brand)
- SkyMarshal 14y ago
  That was my first thought as well, but Rockstar is not just going after Google but carpet-bombing the entire technology world (phones, routers, etc - anything). So why would Apple be on board with that?
  - 3am 14y ago
    Collateral damage?
buster 14y ago
Quite easy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxoAF0Jvhqc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxoAF0Jvhqc http://mashable.com/2012/04/05/steve-jobs-larry-page/ http://mashable.com/2012/04/05/steve-jobs-larry-page/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57409917-37/steve-jobs-really-was-mad-about-android-says-biographer/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57409917-37/steve-jobs-rea... etc etc etc
- pg 14y ago
  Oh, was it Steve's anger about Android copying iOS? I could see that sort of bitterness making a company behave in a way that would otherwise be out of character. Is that the consensus about why Apple did this? If it is, could Apple undo the damage now that it's in more moderate hands? Or have they effectively set off a giant, evil autonomous robot that can't be stopped?
  - 14y ago

nextparadigms 14y ago

Didn't they make a deal with DoJ and the judges from Canada that they won't do something like this, if they get the Nortel patents?

mthoms 14y ago
They seem to have found a loophole by creating a new company to own the patents.

dain 14y ago

Posted because of hypercritical.

pooriaazimi 14y ago
Exactly! None of the previous submissions had made it to the front page, so I googled for "rockstar apple patent troll" and submitted this link and totally forgot about it afterwards. Now I woke up and saw it's on the front page and I'm very happy that many are now familiar with the issue :-)

sad_panda 14y ago

The nightmare never ends.

mindjiver 14y ago

I doubt there are many software patents in this portfolio. Most of these patents most likely cover the L1/L2 protocols for LTE and other wireless standards. These are normally available through FRAND agreements. Disclaimer: I work for one of the companies that bought the patents.

andrewem 14y ago
I'm totally serious about this question: how do you feel about the company you work for doing this?
- mindjiver 14y ago
  Personally I don't approve of _software_ patents but these ones don't bother me that much. I don't really see this different from all the other patent licensing deals we have with the rest of the (wireless) industry. These are part of the way these standards are developed (available under FRAND licenses) and licensed. If you want to bring in a moral perspective I personally feel that a bigger problem is what to do about "legal intercept" features. Especially when selling equipment to countries with regimes that want to misuse them. But lets say this included some trivial (or non-trivial) software patent and this jointly owned company started trolling a lot of individual developers and/or smaller companies. Then I would feel different about this.
  - pooriaazimi 14y ago
    > bigger problem is what to do about "legal intercept" features. Especially when selling equipment to countries with regimes that want to misuse them. As an Iranian (whose government routinely and 'legally' intercepts everything and everyone), I can't agree more with this sentiment :)

junto 14y ago

I'm quite happy for these trolls to go crazy on this one. Patents need to get so insane that eventually we might stop and say WTF are we playing at. Bed made lying in it. Software patents don't work, they never have.

18pfsmt 14y ago

I submitted a story midweek about this same topic and was wondering why nobody else seemed to be concerned. I'm happy to see that is not the case because I don't think anyone in our industry is helped by protectionist maneuvers like this. People wonder why there are fewer hardware startups, but I can tell you the hardware guys I know have expressed concerns over patent issues for not helping me work on a low-power server (and I need their help because I'm too dumb to do board layout on my own).

scott_s 14y ago
What makes it to, and stays on, the front page has a large random component.

sevenstar 14y ago

→Disgusting

shenberg 14y ago

One odd thought crossed my mind - most proprietary software you use has a clause prohibiting reverse engineering in the license agreement, and here they are admitting to the world that they routinely ignore said license agreements. Are they making themselves liable for copyright infringement here since they're using the software without a license? How enforceable are those "no reverse engineering" clauses anyway?

h84ru3a 14y ago

Here's an approach that might move us toward "disarmament". (Assuming that we wanted to achieve it.) Make patent litigation "dirt cheap". Everyone involved in this game knows most of these patent claims would never make it through litigation without being invalidated (i.e. from that point forward, not even worth the paper they are printed on). We just do not know which ones would survive. We do not know which are the "valid claims". Everyone also knows that patent litigation is very expensive. It's too expensive to answer the question-- Is this a valid claim?-- for each and every claim in each and every patent asserted against an "infringer". And so it follows that by threatening a competitor ("infringer") with patent litigation, you can bring them to the negotiation stage, quite easily. They will be willing to make a deal. Litigation puts patent claims under a higher level of scrutiny that the patent office gives them. For ease of reference, let's call it a "review". If we make it inexpensive to do this "review", we can "disarm" these patents. We won't have to go through the "review" process for each and every defensive patent. Because no one will be willing to negotiate based on threats when the cost to "call the patent troll's bluff" is affordable to anyone. Patent litigation (the "review") is expensive. It is prohbitively expensive to separate the wheat from the chaff. This condition is a prerequisite for "patent trolling" to be a viable "business". And it is a viable business. A former Microsoft CTO has used his own wealth to prove that to us. Opening the gates for a vibrant patent troll industry to emerge. Let us be thankful to him for moving us in the right direction. What a "brilliant" man is he.

losethos 14y ago

God is just. God says... CIA I_made_it_that_way CIA persistence What persistence persistence vengeance grumble where's_the_love umm_the_other_answer a_screw_loose are_you_deaf I'm_thrilled I_could_swear what's_it_to_you Enough outrageous joking like_like hello what's_the_plan I'm_beginning_to_wonder petty you're_so_screwed walking what_do_you_expect do_over application these_cans_are_defective computers just_lovely little_fish whatcha_talkin'_'bout furious commanded didn't_I_say_that after_a_break fake kludge kludge whoop_there_it_is what's_the_plan heads_I_win_tails_you_lose face_palm in_practice not_in_my_wildest_dreams na_na make_my_day I'll_get_right_on_it rich goods baffling hard_working oh_oh Hicc_up heaven Vegas that's_all_folks I'm_the_boss Hicc_up money beam_me_up umm_what_now I'm_the_boss I_could_be_wrong maybe_I_didn't_make_it_clear how_about take_the_day_off so_let_it_be_written close_your_eyes depressing are_you_deaf never_happy quit_it

h84ru3a 14y ago

From the Wire article: "It was run by friendly Canadians who did not want to antagonize partners and customers by suing them." Oh well, the patents have found their way into the right hands now so it's all good. Let the American-style antagonism begin.

chmike 14y ago

You have an idea ? There is a patent for it! Apple.

deleted 14y ago

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