Nokia has gotten an injunction against HTC in Germany over a patent on a power-saving feature in Qualcomm chips (?!). Nokia’s response illustrates why the company started its recent patent offensive: “Nokia is pleased with this decision, which confirms the quality of Nokia’s patent portfolio.” If nobody buys your phones and your business is failing spectacularly, you have to promote something else of value to paint yourself as an interesting acquisition target. Patents it is, then. If you can’t compete, litigate. Update: HTC’s statement is pretty damning.
Gotten!
If Nokia’s concerned about the patent portfolio, why spin Qt out to Digia? I don’t understand.
It’s not about logic or reality, but dogma.
If you sue someone over patents your business must be failing. If you don’t agree with this dogma you are a fanboy or worse.
And if you disagree with YOUR reading, you’re apparently lumped into the other group. You’re doing the same thing you’re accusing others of.
Interestingly enough, when Samsung countersued Apple over a patent covering a technique in a Qualcomm chip in the iPhone, we were told this was crazy because it was ‘double-dipping’; Qualcomm already had a license, right? Why should Apple pay twice?
The same is happening here, yet I’m pretty sure the usual suspects will be cheering this along, proclaiming justice and what not. Funny how that works.
I’m not accusing, countersuing Apple or cheering, I’m just observing.
You are not Nokia, HTC or a German judge, yet you know exactly what Nokia’s motives are based on the sales figures of their Lumia phones. Even stranger, you link to an article that is based on Florian Muller’s work, which were aren’t allowed to do.
Your opinion is presented as fact and each time someone disputes this it is waved off in an unpleasant manner.
It’s my opinion we can make our own opinions and should be allowed to debate news facts with an open mind and not dogma.
Of course. That’s exactly what everybody is doing here. All the time.
You only read it as such. I’m not going to add “in my opinion” or “I think” to every statement I make. People here are smart enough to understand this – and so are you.
We’re all adults here. A few harsh and direct words never killed anyone. If it did, I’d be chopped to pieces, burnt, and buried six times over.
In the past week alone.
Yes, and I value that greatly. Alas too often opinions are waved off because not by facts or arguments, but because of ideas that I think have a slight air of dogma around them.
For example one can not say anything positive about Apple or you get stripped of all your clothes, labeled a fanboy and thrown in the streets. Not as worse as getting buried six times, but not pleasant at least.
That’s an assumption. You could also leave your opinion out or put in some journalistic effort and write an opinion piece. In this case I don’t think you put much effort in to finding out the background information regarding Nokia’s motives or what patents are exactly at stake. That would be actual useful/insightful information for us.
Your opinion now is a “probably”. It may be right, it may be wrong, it may be both or neither. I.e. it doesn’t add anything.
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At least you didn’t get an iPad Mini for your birthday like some readers here did.
I’d love an iPad Mini. Save for the crappy low-res display (really, it surprised me just how bad it is), it’d be a great addition to my collection. Not something I’d pay for, though.
The iPhone, iPad and iPad Mini first generation were/are all nice, but the 2nd generation was much nicer.
I’m waiting for the 2nd gen iPad Mini for my son so I can get my iPad back.
Pfft, don’t be like that, we would never do that.
…I believe we’re inventive enough a bunch to come up with some much fancier ways of disposing of you.
Well, I’m all against patent trolls, yet the above statement is utter crap. Sorry my french. Generally speaking, if you don’t protect your patents, nobody will, and sometimes the only way to do that is through the courts. Again, I’m not talking about trolls here, they are not proper users of this system, but the abusers of it.
And the view being expressed is that if you’re doing well, spending vast amounts of time and money protecting your patents is less productive from a business standpoint than spending it selling more units to your customers. Seems like a reasonable inference.
And if you feel that it’s absolutely, positively necessary to include words like ‘probably’, ‘likely’, etc., just because the expressed opinion can’t be proven to be true in 100% of cases, feel free to join in the pissing contest instigated by MOS above. Jeez.
I’m pretty sure the people creating Nokia products aren’t the same as the ones doing the court cases.
It’s my opinion that in communication you should make it clear if something is an opinion and not state it as a fact. Or worse: state it as a fact and attack people who dispute it being a fact.
In a lot of fields it can be terrible confusing if people presented their opinions as facts and rather annoying if things are messed up to claim “well, you should have know it was an opinion”. I consider “journalism” a profession where you should make it very clear what is opinion and what is fact. Should the readers be guessing each time what is what?
What if you are out of work and walk around in expensive sneakers. Someone asks me how you got them. I take a guess and think you have stolen them. But in my reply I don’t mention it’s a guess, but I say, “He stole them”. You get upset and I reply, “Well, it was just a guess. That guy seemed smart, he should have known I was guessing”.
What is happening here is that a mantra is being repeated. Each time a bad guy sues a good guy the mantra is added to the true fact. The mantra is turned in to dogma. If someone tries to dispute it he is ridiculed and any arguments are waved off.
Now I’ve been on-line long enough to understand that a lot of people, like you, aren’t necessary interested in any background information or bear any interested in the (real) facts and rather have a “victim” to have a go at. Some cheap shots or nasty words to let it be known they are the bad ones and you are the good one like you just did by making it appear Nokia employees put down their screwdrivers to present a court case in Germany.
I guess that won’t change, no matter what anyone says or does, but I just hope maybe on this site people can hand out and receive arguments with some level of open mind instead of unleashing insults, hiding behind dogmatic “facts” or playing word games.
Even a billion dollar check only goes so far when your market share collapses, and then the seed corn starts to look very tasty…
Because some sane people there managed to save Qt from Nokia that would otherwise just bury it to satisfy their MS overlords.
Edited 2013-03-20 05:39 UTC
So Nokia stole a page outta apple’s book I see.
I just bought the Lumia 620 (after years of Android) and I was (well, still am) happily surprised.
I think devices like the 620 (and 520) are the way to go for Nokia (affordable, mid-range hardware without cutting too many important features and with loads of good software additions), they shouldn’t get started with patent extortion…
But hey, maybe this suit was started before they had something to show for their WP effort.
It is very much about the money for Nokia. At this point, anything they can do to extent their shelf life is a good move. I’m 100% certain that Nokia would rather settle with HTC and get paid than enforce exclusion orders. There will be damages though, so its a consolation prize.
However these trials don’t happen in two days. The wheels for this has been set in motion since before the new Lumia range was even released. Hell, Nokia’s first phones would barely have had time to make an appreciable market impact (failure or otherwise) before Nokia might’ve been considering targeting HTC.
I don’t think this patent is particularly dangerous because as HTC rightfully claims, it is an easy design around. Just take the battery hit.
Still, Nokia’s patent portfolio is extremely diverse and powerful. I wouldn’t be surprised if Nokia and HTC announce a licensing partnership in the near future. They have sunk billions into R&D in a ton of areas over the years, which isn’t to be downplayed.
Also, the double dipping comparison isn’t the same. Nokia isn’t saying that Qualcomm has a license, they’re saying that Qualcomm infringes, but going after HTC which is equally liable.
Just like how companies like Apple and Microsoft find Android to infringe but generally go after the OEMs.
Nonsense, every one has to assert their patents because everyone else is asserting there patents. This is simply path of the process … a consequences of Apple-Google becoming leaders in the field.
Incidentally – don’t imagine HTC or any other company are innocent imagining …”we won’t be infringing on Nokia patents”, Nokia has been in business for 100+ years! These court proceedings are simply the end result of ego, gambling and failure negotiate properly!
Edited 2013-03-19 14:11 UTC
I’m not sure how what I said is nonsense, or how what you said runs contrary to what I said, but feel free to elaborate.
This pretty much sums up what’s wrong with the current patent legal system. Actor X can be sued by Actor Y for an infringement by Actor Z simply because Actor X happened to use a product made by Z.
It’s even worse since this apparently also applies to regular consumers (personal as well as corporate) so I could be sued by Sony for an infringement in a Samsung product that own. How in the hell can consumers be expected to understand and be aware of these things? It’s like someone went “Hey, you know those protection rackets the mafia runs? How can we make that legal and available to companies?”.
This is wrongheaded beyond belief.
I agree. I think you hit the nail right on the head and it is a potential avenue for abuse. However such things also exists in other corners of all types of law.
Its usually up to the Judge to decide what is frivolous and what is actually consistent with the spirit of the law, and there’s been evidence that it goes on during patent trials. Sometimes patent assertions will go from 30 to something like 5, or they’ll just be dismissed with prejudice outright. From that POV, I think its hard to argue that abuses in the law are actually occurring to such an extent.
HTC isn’t a Mom & Pop store. They’re also easier to sue, they directly sell the infringing product which makes it easier to argue for damages.
What! Nokia sold 86 million phone last Q4 alone! Only a bloggers could make this kind of statement
and get away with it …
I’m sure Thom meant their Windows Phones, and even that, relative to the volume that iOS and Android move. Its true, Windows Phone has a while to go.
I don’t think the situation is as terrible as its made to seem, they move a lot of phones, even Lumias. They enjoy mild success, encouraging even.
As their reorganization and slimming down makes them more agile you’ll see them fill out their product lineup and consequentially amass more volume. They’ve released 12 Windows Phone since they adopted the platform. That’s incredible speed.
Nokia was catching up 800/900. Now they’re caught up with the 920. Now its time to leap ahead. That’s generally how these things work.
At least on the high end. On the mid to low end I think Nokia is positioned to absolutely dominate.
Asha feature phone sales are growing very rapidly and Nokia is regaining lost marketshare in many places. Its amazing what they’re done with S40. The price points they’re hitting are resonaing big in the emerging markets.
Their low end Lumia devices offer a plain better experience at price points as low as $180 off of contract. Yes, they’re not at all price points yet, but they’ve indicated they can even go lower.
Nokia’s ASP dropped last quarter which indicates that the smartphones they are selling are mid to low range phones. That speaks very well to their market reception.
I’m still bullish, I still think Stephen Elop will be vindicated at the end of the day. I’m interested in the next quarterly results to see how right/wrong I am.
… the sooner the current patent system ends up in the bin. That’s the only positive side of this situation; all the recent most prominent conflicts (especially from patent trolls) have brought more scrutiny to the system and a fair amount of silly patents being investigated and eventually dismissed. Personally I hope it goes on like this, the more they troll the sooner the problem fixes itself.
Can you elucidate what you find damning about HTC’s PR? I don’t find anything particularly revealing or telling about it, never mind “damning” or even “pretty damning.”