And we have another interesting development in the ongoing and ever-expanding idiocy that is the War of the High-Fiving Lawyers Mobile Patent World War. Motorola, now a central player in this worldwide conflict that is hurting consumers’ wallets and clogging legal systems all over the world, has come to HTC’s rescue by seeking to invalidate the patents Apple sued HTC with earlier this year.
Motorola, until recently a relatively neutral party in the Mobile Patent World War, has now joined the hostilities big time. Not only were they sued by Microsoft, they also sued Apple. The latest development is that Motorola also seeks to invalidate the patents Apple is using to sue the living daylights out of HTC.
The reason for this new move is simple and explained quite clearly in the filing. Motorola believes that it will face a patent infringement suit from Apple covering the same patents Cupertino is currently suing HTC with. As a pre-emptive strike, Motorola is seeking a declaratory judgement to invalidate the patents in question outright. In Dragon Age terms: you stealth your rogue, coat your dual swords in concentrated deathroot extract, scout ahead, flank the enemy, and strike, which becomes an automatic critical hit due the attack being initiated while in stealth.
Since it’s becoming ever harder to say something sane about this nonsense that is costing consumers money while also clogging up the legal system, let’s look at a picture of a pretty unicorn. Alternatively, let’s watch these again.
…tiresome. Not that you report on it, just the fact that our society is so litigious. Granted that is sometimes difficult to avoid with the patent antics of corporate monsters obsessed with owning their niche in the world.
Agreed, although I must say this is one of the very few sane litigations that I heard about recently. Thom wrote:
A somewhat misleading summary. Motorola is playing a central role now in the patent madness “hurting cusomer wallets” – but it should be made clear that they are the good guys here. What’s good for us and our wallets? Competition of course. If Apple manages to stop competition via ridiculous lawsuits, that’s bad for us. If their software/ideas patents are shot down, then they’ll have to compete purely on merit, they’ll have to improve their offerings, maybe even lower prices as Android handsets gain ground.
It’s a numbers game right now – there are already lots of useful apps for Android. Personally, I don’t miss anything – but I often see some of my colleagues (yeah, adults) playing games on their iPhones that are not available on Android yet. As the number of Android users grow, it will become a more and more viable target for developers. When it comes to hardware, the Nexus One released almost a year ago is still pretty competitive with iPhone 4 imho. That’s what makes Apple so trigger-happy when it comes to lawsuits, attacking Google via a proxy like HTC, while having the other successful Android manufacturer covered by their buddies at Microsoft.
Hardware that is on par with Apple’s offering are already there from multiple manufacturers (HTC, Motorola, Samsung), so Android growth is guaranteed. Apple tried to shut down the software angle by creating a ridiculously restrictive EULA for their SDK, but had to back down on that one. The only weapon they have now is litigation. Alternatively, they could develop products that kick the competitions’ ass, but seeing Antennagate and Glassgate recently, I suppose they are not up to it. Have you ever seen anyone using a naked iPhone4 – I mean the thing is fragile (even if we consider the antenna problems negligible, blown out of proportions). It does look beautiful, no question about it, had the pleasure of playing with one myself, but once it’s condomed, from a distance it looks just like the 3gs.
To be frank, I do believe it is done out of self-interest, as it helps strengthen their own case against Apple.
I do agree that “central player” is a bit misleading, but more in the sense that aside from their Apple lawsuit, Motorola are only the defendant in the cases Nokia, Microsoft and RIM started against them. See the “circle of insanity”: http://news.designlanguage.com/post/1252039209
I didn’t think it was pure altruism either
It’s just nice that their interest aligns nicely with ours 
…and not much else, which is why they’re doing it. Watch now for a rash of similar suits against all of the players, including Motorola, seeking to invalidate patents on similar grounds. This could backfire on Motorola quite badly.
Getting rid of patents isn’t the answer though – companies aren’t going to spend millions on R&D unless they have some sort of protection. Give them a much smaller timeframe of exclusivity / licensing rights – five or ten years – after which it reverts to some form of open license where the originator has to be credited. If they can’t or haven’t done anything with the technology in that time bad luck. If it’s a milestone development they’d have more than ample opportunity to achieve a return on their investment. It would also mean the death of the patent trolls and those companies who continue to exist purely on their inventory of patents.
The Motorola Droid phones are doing quite well. Remember that Apple started the patent war against Android because they are afraid of it.
Posted with my [jailbroken] iPhone. Heh.
And here’s where we have a fundamental difference of opinion. You on one hand don’t think companies should be able to benefit from software or UI developments, while I believe they are just as important and significant in the usefulness of a device as the hardware that powers it.
I don’t believe Apple are afraid of them at all, and I don’t believe they (Droid devices) will or are in any way affecting Apple’s plans for their iOS devices. The fact is that Apple popularised smart phones because they created an interface that made them easy to use and non-threatening. Others have since followed suit, and therefore profited from the developments Apple bought to that industry. And it’s not just smart phones that are employing these interface developments, many devices both in and apart from the communications industry are using UI components and techniques that were introduced on iPods and iPhone. Again, companies profiting from Apple’s developments.
This is no different to companies profiting from hardware developments that power some of these devices. You are I can sit and look at UI components and say “well that was just obvious though”, but the point is that until it was done it WASN’T obvious because nobody had done it. In the same way I can look at the first Motorola flip phone and say it was obvious because Gene Roddenberry did it in Star Trek, and the functionality of many of the hardware components that make up these modern devices are also “obvious” because they had to be created to achieve the overall goal of the device.
Motorola are no longer anywhere near as significant a player in the global mobile industry as they once were, and many of their other exploits have also dwindled over the past few years. They and many of the other once big players have taken a beating from Apple and are like the kids who didn’t like losing the football match on the weekend so ganged up and beat up the star player from the other team.
My point though was that if the whole patent system was significantly cut back to provide a small window of protection for the developer of both hardware and software components we could get rid of this shit altogether and force the hand of these companies to be continually innovating. Don’t you think that would be a good thing?
A programmer patenting his code is the same as an author patenting his book; completely superfluous as both are already protected through copyright.
If you are in favour of software patents, you are basically saying that it is okay for CNN to patent their report on a news event, and then suing the BBC because the BBC also reports on that news event.
Software is protected by copyright. That’s more than enough.
Agreed.
As long as software providers are required to “do their own work” (i.e. in this case, write their own code), then each provider is not directly copying the work of any other software provider.
Each provider will have to employ programmers to write their code, they won’t be able to simply copy (i.e. steal) the code from someone else.
If a given feature from one provider is an attractive, innovative new feature, then the first one to market with such a feature will be rewarded for producing it. Subsequently allowing other software providers to produce a similar feature will provide more employment and it will stimulate further innovation, becuase the newcomers to the market will need to have a better-than-the-original feature.
Without software patents there is still profit for innovators, there is more innovation, there is a lot less wastage and unnecessary costs through litigation, and there is more employment for programmers.
Where is the downside in dropping software patents, and protecting software only through copyrights?
I’m of the opinion that patents, copyrights and other intangible property rights fundamentally diminish natural property rights. Also, I bet we’d have a more competitive market without their existence.
I’m sorry, but Apple did not invent the smart phone interface, nor did they popularize it as much as you state.
The touch screen phones/devices that we have today are all derivatives of Palm.
The Palm engineers are ex-Apple engineers.
Yes and no.
Originally, Palm had nothing to do with Apple. It was founded by people who had never worked for Apple at all. In fact, Hawkins was developing touchscreen tablets and PDAs, including handwriting recognition, since the ’80s.
It wasn’t until the Palm Pre/webOS days that some Apple engineers made their way to Palm – some, not all. You are grossly oversimplifying the matter.
I know that for you Apple is the Alpha and the Omega of anything remotely related to computing, but you’re quite wrong about that. Or do you mean that HTC engineers were originally Apple engineers? How do you suppose they ended up in Taiwan?
Actually, HTC is one company with many first. Check the “smartphones” entry on wikipedia, or check HTC’s history.
HTC started to develop the world’s first touch and wireless devices in 1998.
HTC desidned the first Microsoft-powered smartphone in 2002 and the first Microsoft 3G phone in 2005 (incidentally, they were the first on the market with a new 4G phone).
The Palm Treo 650 and the first iDevice, the iPAQ (no relation there to Apple) was also designed by them (in 2000).
The first iPhone was introduced in January 2007.
So you’re meaning to say that the Palm Treo and the iPAQ were designed by Apple engineers seven years before they launched the iPhone?
Now when it comes to the Newton, that might be considered a first, but it was a completely different architecture and concept (running it’s own Newton OS, and sporting SDK that had it’s own programming language, surprising called the Newton Programming Language). That said, we saw both concepts (I mean Treo/iPAQ and Newton) in Star Trek TNG way before they were launched. Now if Gene Roddenberry had patented the idea back then…
Mr Roddenberry would shake his head in disgust if he saw how technological advances are being held hostage by greedy and evil companies like Apple, Microsoft, and the like. The Star Trek universe is the exact polar opposite of everything those companies stand for.
Roddenberry’s utopia pretty much means the end of companies like Apple and Microsoft.
Yeah, I agree completely… He had a utopian vision of a future where corporate greed (or greed in general) does not dominate human life. Apple is prime example of corporate greed.
They are a successful company designing really good products (even the iPhone4 with all its flaws is an excellent product). They deserve all the money they got from it. However, that no longer is enough.
Step 1: trying to eliminate competition by locking app developers into exclusive contracts (basically the EULA of their SDK that was designed to cut off any possibility to develop for other platforms). Luckily, this scheme failed.
Step 2: trying the other path – litigation. Basically, in their lawsuit against HTC they are asking the courts to prohibit distribution of HTC devices in the US market.
Step 3: ????
The goal is no longer a healthy profit margin. The goal is complete domination of this market segment.
I read an article in the New York Times about the advantages of an open ecosystem against a closed one – long term of course. iOS has 250,000 apps while Android has 80,000 – a signifant difference, but also the kind of turning point when it becomes economically viable to develop for the platform. There are lots of huge gaps in the app offerings on Android (nothing though that I can’t live without, mostly games). There are no signs that Android growths is going to slow down, in fact, it will only accelerate. Double the number of apps and it becomes even more attractive for consumers that makes it more attractive to developers that in turn makes it even more attractive for consumers…
Anyway, at the end of the article, Professor Yoffie from Harvard Business School predicts that “Apple will lose its overall leadership, but maintain a share of the market that could easily be in the 25 percent to 30 percent range.†He added: “That’s enough to sustain a very large and very profitable business.†Actually, you don’t have to be a professor to see this coming. But to get back to my point, a healthy 25-30 percent marketshare sustaining a very large and profitable business is inconvenient. Just like Microsoft in the 90s, Apple wants to dominate, and force out competition at any cost, by any means necessary (see steps 1 & 2).
Now step 3 could be anything. The rational part of me hopes that these ridiculous patents will be invalidated. Hopes – that is, I don’t take it for granted, in fact I fear the opposite. And a part of me just wishes that the court granted everything Apple dreams of. Really, go ahead. Remove all HTC phones from the US market. Remove all NOKIAs (not that they have much of a presence there). Remove all “INSERT NEXT APPLE TARGET HERE” – and see how happy consumers are with their limited choices, on top of the already ridiculous carrier lock-ins. Let’s f–k up the whole idea of competition, and then see if users like tyrione or mrhasbean are still clapping their hands for Apple and other litigious bastards.
EDIT> link to the article I referred to – nothing special int there actually, but it’s a good light read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/technology/18apple.html?_r=1&src=…
Edited 2010-10-18 16:48 UTC
Of course Apple didn’t invent the smart phone and Palm had a crude stylus touch screen before the iPhone. But what is true is that the iPhone version one in 2007 looked and functioned like no other smart phone available at the time.
And what is also true is that almost all smart phones now look like the iPhone.
This is what Android looked like in 2007.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/12/a-visual-tour-of-androids-ui/
Here’s an actual hardware prototype from then.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/android-hardware-in-the-wild/google-andr…
It didn’t look anything like an iPhone, nor like anything Apple would ever be interested in making. It looked like a BlackBerry or Windows Mobile phone — hardware keyboards and non-touch screens.
Now compare a 2010 Android design to a current iPhone.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/19/droid-incredible-review/
The iPhone has completely reshaped the design and UI of smart phones.
And the iPhoneOS is simply an avolution of PalmOS and Windows Mobile, which were both stylus-optimised – using the finger instead of the stylus was simply the next step in touch-oriented UI design. Apple does UI design very well, and as such, they got it pretty right with the iOS. However, to claim that was some sort of magical revolution that Apple came up with in a total vacuum is something only fanboys can claim with a straight face.
Apple’s iPhone is built on top of the immense investments *in hardware* made by *other* companies, the GSM heavyweights like Motorola and Nokia. *Their* investments built the worldwide mobile network and spread the mobile phone around the world. And now, as the lawsuits show, Apple is trying to weasel their way out of owning up to that massive investment – an investment, I might add, which costs FAR more money than developing a UI. Software is incredibly cheap to develop compared to hardware and infrastructure.
Software-wise, the iPhone borrows an immense amount of know-how and design from especially the PalmOS’ single-tasking interface. When I first used an iPhone, it surprised me just how incredibly similar PalmOS and the iPhone really were, interface-wise – except that the iPhone had multitouch and thus focussed on fingers, whereas the PalmOS focussed on the stylus.
History is being rewritten by the Apple fanboys right before our very eyes. Yes, the iPhone caused a shift in the mobile phone world, but this was only made possible by the immense groundwork and infrastructure building by companies like Motorola and Nokia, and the software work by companies like Palm.
If you take any iPhone, only the software has been designed by Apple. Everything else is technology developed elsewhere – the radio, wireless networking, the ARM architecture, the display, everything.
Edited 2010-10-18 14:11 UTC
They also where first to market. Atleast in a big way.
Mod parent down.
Not having done something doesn’t mean it’s not obvious. It may just be that the enabling technology (like cheap touch screen) was not there previously.
Let’s say I patent “pure virtual functions in object oriented languages” right after first implementation of OO language (with “normal” virtual functions) was published (by someone else – possibly someone I know, so I had the time to prepare the patent application). By your logic, this would be a non-obvious patent.
Edited 2010-10-18 07:58 UTC
mrhasbean-
Your logic is entirely ridiculous. Quite the contrary, companies will spend more to stay on par with the competition. If we didn’t have this tyrannical patent system society would be far better off.
Edited 2010-10-18 00:00 UTC
LOL. Right, and if we had flying cars, there would be no ground traffic. Ergo, it would create a whole new set of problems. It’s just common sense. If you make it easier for people to copy your inventions, you will have a society that basically sits around waiting for somebody to innovate, and then steals those ideas without investing a dime. Who would want to invest significant dollars and effort in any enterprise, knowing that their competitors will just rip-off whatever they produce? I would argue that this just slows down the pace of innovation. It doesn’t increase it.
Please understand. What you’re complaining about isn’t lack of innovation. It’s that each innovation is owned by someone in the industry who has his hand out, expecting to be paid. But since those costs are borne by the industry as a whole, it’s a fairer system for everyone concerned, at the risk of pricing the little guy out of the market. But that’s not to say that the little guy can’t produce his own inventions and demand payment.
Ironically, in the archaic times, patents were supposed to facilitate copying of inventions.
It’s simple – in software, implementation is king and ideas are dime a dozen. If you only have ideas and can not execute, you should not get rich in this business. Please find a business more suitable for your psychological setup (like marketing?)
Software patents are not being used in the way that you suggest. They were initailly being used as warchests, as arsenals of weapons to counter-attack when someone tries to sue you. Recently there has been the emergence of the patent troll where no counter-attack is possible since the patent troll makes no product.
Also there has been the emergence of patent consortiums such as MPEG LA. This is effectively a little cartel, set up to make it dificult for any new entrant into a market. Fortunately there are often multiple ways to skin a cat, and something new such as webM can indeed enter the market despite the best efforts of the consortium to kill it.
So no … your contention is myth. Software patents are being used almost exclusively to prevent innovation rather than foster it.
This is effectively precisely the opposite to the effect that patents are supposed to achieve.
Get rid of software patents and everyone involved even peripherally in the software industry will be far better off, including especially the programmers themselves and all of the end users of software. The only hangers-on who will be worse off are the patent lawyers. These are a pure drain on the economy in any event, so no great loss there.
Not sure much of this is right, R & D they probably will spend as they have no choice you innovate or die, they would still be protected by copyright, i.e their competitors would have to work out how to implement the innovation.
5 – 10 years 10 years is far too long 2 – 4 might be reasonable (and for real innovations not just an idea I had whilst in the bath). In the tech industries if you can’t make your innovation work in that time scale you can’t make it work.
Why credit an idea? (your car doesn’t have a list of credits to say who invented the camshaft etc) if you use others work, then again your covered by copyright and should be credited.
The patent system is broken and doesn’t do as it was intended promote innovation. The reason it hasn’t been fixed is that large corporations and possibly more importantly powerful states see that see IP as something that distinguishes them from the emerging companies and economies and they do not want to give up this edge.
This will fail unless it is reasonable, India, China etc will not indefinitely pay an IP tax to the US etc. They will not submit to rules that indefinitely prevent their companies from developing and innovating.
Why not ? It’s just the price to pay to be first on the market. Did the patent system prevent the iPhone clones ? No, but Apple was first and could milk the cow in the meantime. Removing the patent system would just prevent that ridiculous thing what is happening now.
Funny how this is not what patents are supposed to protect against…
Won’t somebody please think of the desktop
Dude, you’re so old-fashioned, don’t you know that everything done on the desktop nowadays will be done on the mobile space tomorrow ?
Including (but not limited to) complex photo editing, 30p+ report redaction, multitrack sound recording, audio mixing and mastering, professional-grade video editing, programming (including OSdeving), precise painting, complex web browsing, heavy computation…
Edited 2010-10-18 08:21 UTC
…Flash games…
Obviously, the day people realize how much they surpass the average mobile game in terms of gameplay creativity ^^
See angry birds as an example : a major mobile hit, so probably one of the best games the mobile space has to offer. And it’s so similar to the average kongregate game…
Same for that game with a monster eating candy (can’t remember its name) : it’s obviously ripped off flash hits like Splitter.
Edited 2010-10-18 09:14 UTC
What Flash ? I don’t think Flash has much of a future in webgames, it is going to bne surpased (yes, it will take years obviously).
So if I read this correctly they are seeking to have Apple’s patents invalidated, patents that were issued by the patent office based on submissions by Apple, but they also want to be awarded their legal fees and any other “relief” as the court sees fit – costs that I assume would have to be paid by Apple – as damages for bringing the action to invalidate the patents.
Isn’t that like having someone run a red light and hit you then expecting their car manufacturer to pay for your repairs?
No, it’s more like having the person who hit your car while it was parked pay for the repairs.
If I read you correctly, you just drew an analogy between invalidating software patents and running a red light and putting someone’s life in danger. Are you serious???
You have like 10 different replies to you previous post where you tried to defend software patents. Try read them, they are quite reasonable. Software patents are hindering innovation instead of fostering it. Being first to the market with something new has its own reward, regardless of whether the ideas were patented or not. Apple raked in billions in revenue by being the first to have a product that incorporated the ideas of others in a way that was attractive to consumers. Isn’t their phenomenal growth, the billions of dollars they earned reward enough? Granting them the right to stop others doing the same after reaping those rewards it’s pretty damn ridiculous.
… I’m not really sure how it’s been “hurting consumer’s wallets” though…
Situation: every one of a dozen manufacturers or providers has an armful of patents that apply to a technology area, such as smartphones.
Consequence: every one of a dozen manufacturers or providers has to pay out to eleven other manufacturers in order to make their own smartphone. Coming up with a different way to implement similar features is not enough, because you are going to get sued anyway, even if your implementation doesn’t actually infringe any patents.
Result: every smartphone includes eleven armfuls of small costs that it shouldn’t need to. No-one is employed to make a new implementation of a given feature, because it costs far less in litigation costs to license it a couple of times from certain of the other players than to design your own new implementation. The paying public just has to pay the extra, for absolutely no benefit to those who are paying.
Smartphones end up costing everyone twice as much as they should. There are no new innovative startup companies entering the market. New features become rarer, because it becomes ever harder and harder to implement something new without becoming a target for dozens of patent trolls. Fewer and fewer people are employed in the area of new engineering design.
The only winners are the lawyers and the top 1% or so of big business executives. The rest of the population just sees ever-increasing costs in order to support the luxury of non-producing lawyers and executives.
Once software is written, it is written. Software should be a reducing cost to society, not an ever-increasing one. Software should drive new innovation and investment, not prevent it.
Edited 2010-10-18 03:45 UTC
Ah… I see.
So it’s like the costs of the constituent hardware components, software development and marketing of a particular product.
We don’t definitively know how much these patent disputes actually costs each consumer, just that they’re “hurting consumer’s wallets”.
I don’t think this has any impact on consumer wallets this way. Cost of production has no direct link with consumer wallet. It only affects the profit margin for the shareholders. At the end of the day, the product is sold for a price that is as high as they think they can sell it to maximize the profit margin. The selling price is not related to the cost of production. They don’t calculate the cost of production, say they will make 30% profit on it and sell it for cost+30%. It does not work that way. They calculate how much they can sell it, then how much it cost and the difference is their profit.
I think it does still affect consumer wallet but not the way you say it does. I think consumer wallet is affected because of the monopoly effect. Corporations that do not license their patents but use them to stop competitors from competiting. Being the only producer allowed to produce, you can set a price much higher and increase your profit margin by that amount.
I think it does affect more than consumer wallet. It also affects consumer life style. Consumer is spoiled from better products because the patents create dead ends in technology. Whole fields of derivative technologies are not allowed to exist to the detriment of the consumer and the human race in general. Progress is castrated by the patents.
I may be sitting in the lounge-room drinking beer and playing alan wake, but this doesn’t really fit.
this is more like motorola has appeared out of the darkness to attack apple so alan/HTC can run away into the light and protect itself.
on a more serious note this is great! invalidating patents is at least a step towards destroying them.
So, they also have to do their business …
pica
Broken Windows Fallacy. Having bad laws fostering litigation and hurting innovation, shouldn’t be justified by saying that it feeds lawyers. There are ample worthwile area’s of law to feed the lawyers. No need for idea patents to do that with make work.
But, large companies have invested huge amounts of dollars in getting these patents. They won’t give them for free. They will activate their lobbiists to prevent any changes in the laws. …
I presume they will fight against until dead-lock.
pica