There may be more than one thing wrong, and one of those things is Google may not be appropriately organized to operate in some of the markets it has chosen to enter - e.g. the mobile phone industry. Their corporate strategy for the search and advertising services upon which the company was built is centered around trade secrets - and that makes a lot of sense given the sausage factory model upon which they have built those services.
Unfortunately for Google, telecommunications doesn't work that way and never has - that's why Nortel had such a big patent portfolio and why Bell Labs did things like patent Shockley's work on the transistor. This is why it takes longer for more mature companies to bring competitive products to a new market segment - e.g. HP felt it prudent to acquire WebOS before head to head competition with the iPad and Microsoft's WP7 doesn't look and feel like iOS.
In a nutshell, Google's problem is that in the telecommunications industry, they did not innovate through a traditional R&D process. Instead, they appear to have rushed the development of Android without proper due diligence in order to be first to market with (operational and technical merits of Android aside) what could be called an "iPhone knockoff". Now that lack of due diligence is coming back to bite them.
<speculation>Could it be that senior Google leadership's fascination with the Sidekick which led to Android lead developer Andy Rubin's being brought onboard led to the damn the torpedoes approach to IP surrounding Android? And could it be that the patents upon which Microsoft's license strategy for Android is base came from their acquisition of Rubin's former startup, Danger, which he left in order to found Android? </speculation>
Frankly, it should be ok to enter the market the way Google did.
With Android Google stepped into a mature market for the first time and appears to have committed rookie errors - it's not the stuff in the Nortel or Novell portfolios which is generating income for Microsoft - and a lot of Microsoft's patents were created through old fashioned in-house R&D - exactly the sort of innovation which should be protected.
<cynical_speculation>It may have been in Google's interest to turn Andorid into Open Source in October of 2008 due to the liability incurred when Microsoft acquired Danger's patent portfolio earlier in the year. Particularly in light of Google's antipatent corporate culture and Andy Rubin's role in creating Google's phone software.</cynical_speculation>
Only if that "innovation" is actually novel, non-obvious, specific, and useful, and certainly not for 20 years (roughly 13 generations in tech years).
It may have been in Google's interest to turn Andorid into Open Source in October of 2008 due to the liability incurred when Microsoft acquired Danger's patent portfolio earlier in the year.
If Android was always based on the Linux kernel, then they probably had an open source plan from the beginning.
Edit: With Android Google stepped into a mature market for the first time and appears to have committed rookie errors
This sounds like code for "Google stepped into our territory and didn't pay its protection money."
This really irks anyone who, like me, believes that the only limitations on a tech company should be from the laws of physics, the current state of technology, and basic ethics (e.g. don't blatantly rip off competitors).
Instead, they appear to have rushed the development of Android without proper due diligence in order to be first to market with (operational and technical merits of Android aside) what could be called an "iPhone knockoff".
Android was under development years before the iPhone was announced. Google bought Android before iPhone development started. The Openmoko project was also announced before the iPhone was announced. The iPhone is simply a single (very good) implementation of an idea that had been brewing in the mind of the Technium.
Uh, Google is organized enough to create a profitable OS which well on the way to becoming the dominant smart phone OS in the world.
"Appropriately" here would mean that "organized to join the patent mafia"?
I am tired of this straight out lie. See this article:
http://thisismynext.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analys...
Lets look at what Apple is using against Samsung:
Trade dress infringement under 15 U.S.C. § 1125 and Federal trade dress infringement under 15 U.S.C. § 1114 -- both of these are directly related to the physical design of the iPhone and iPad.
Trademare infringement on logos: •No. 3,886,196 is the iOS phone app icon. •No. 3,889,642 is the iOS messaging app icon. •No. 3,886,200 is the iOS photos app icon. •No. 3,889,685 is the iOS settings app icon. •No. 3,886,169 is the iOS notes app icon. • No. 3,886,197 is the iOS contacts icon. •Pending No. 85/041,463 is the iTunes icon, which is a riff on U.S. Registration No. 2,935,038, the desktop iTunes logo.
All of those are iOS logos, except an iTunes logo.
Now you might be saying, those aren't patents. True. So lets look at the patents:
D627,790: Graphical User Interface For a Display Screen or Portion Thereof -- filing date: 2007. It's a design patent for their home screen on iOS
D602,016: Electronic Device -- filing date: 2010. This is the design of the shell of the 3g/3gs.
#D618,677: Electronic Device -- filing date: 2008. This is the design of screen and buttons of the 3g/3gs.
Patent #6,493,002: Method and Apparatus for Displaying and Accessing Control and Status Information in a Computer System -- filed 1997. This is really the only patent used against Samsung that is a direct result of their work on MacOS, rather than iOS. I'd argue that this is the only patent in support of your thesis.
Patent #7,469,381: List Scrolling and Document Translation, Scaling and Rotation on a Touch-Screen Display -- filing date: 2003. One of the first patents presumed to be part of their iOS portfolio.
Patent #7,669,134: Method and Apparatus For Displaying Information During An Instant Messaging Session -- filed 2003, although not strictly an iOS patent.
Patent #7,812,828: Ellipse Fitting For Multi-Touch Surfaces -- filed 2007. A very iPhone focused patent.
Patent #7,844,915: Application programming interfaces for scrolling operations -- filed 2007. This is about user feedback during gesture based scrolling operations.
Patent #7,853,891: Method and apparatus for displaying a window for a user interface -- filed 2008. This is related to their iOS window management.
Patent #7,863,533: Cantilevered push button having multiple contacts and fulcrums -- filed in 2008. This is a utility patent on their volume rocker in the 3g/3gs.
My point? The VAST majority of the claims against Samsung are directly smartphone related. The VAST majority a direct result of their work on the iPhone.
As I've noted in other posts, Jobs telegraphed his intention back in 2007 at the iPhone unveiling. See http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/live-from-macworld-2007-s.... Quoted from Engadget, but I'm sure paraphrased from Jobs, "So let's not use a stylus, we're going to use the best pointing device in the world -- our fingers. We have invented a new technology called multi-touch. It works like magic, you don't need a stylus, far more accurate than any interface ever shipped, it ignores touches, mutli-finger gestures, and BOY have we patented it!"
There's no reason why Android shouldn't have built up similar IP protection in this time. This is why I say whoever ran their IP strategy should be shown the door. This is a firing offense to find yourself in a position where the only way to protect yourself is not to assert your own IP, but to have to resort to buying IP you didn't create.
This is one of the many things that I (and probably many others) find fundamentally broken with the patent system. If I'm creating my own mobile operating system from the ground up, I shouldn't have to patent anything if I don't want to. Actual innovation comes in the form of lines of code, not numbers of patents. "IP" as you put it is orthogonal to the actual productive work of a company.
Patents, in my view, should be used strictly to prevent a competitor from producing a direct ripoff of a highly specific invention.
Most important is visually indicating in some fashion what text you are quoting and which text you have written yourself.
True to a point. But isn't it telling that Apple had to resort to buying IP it didn't create? What does that tell you?
#4, #6, #8 and #9 are Open Handset Alliance members. I'm surprised they don't use their IP collectively to protect the platform.
Acquiring "bogus" patents in order to defend from legitimate ones you infringe upon is plainly evil as it twists the whole patent system (and is one of the reasons why our current patent system is broken). Incidentally, that's what Google planned to do. That doesn't automatically mean they are now an evil corporation, but it's not fair to describe the whole scheme as righteous. It's just business.
That's the idea, but not the practice. Nathan Myrhvold comes to mind.
1. The number 250,000 is clearly a made up number, but the real number is in that ballpark (order of magnitude).
2. The Novell patents numbered ~800, a very small fraction of 250,000.
3. The Nortel patents numbered ~6000, still a small fraction of 250,000.
While some of the Novell and Nortel patents likely are bogus, as a whole they are very likely to be higher quality than the other 240,000 smart phone-threatening patents out there.
""" This anti-competitive strategy is also escalating the cost of patents way beyond what they’re really worth. The winning $4.5 billion for Nortel’s patent portfolio was nearly five times larger than the pre-auction estimate of $1 billion. Fortunately, the law frowns on the accumulation of dubious patents for anti-competitive means — which means these deals are likely to draw regulatory scrutiny, and this patent bubble will pop. """
Maybe google just meant that they didn't like them very much?
Patents are being used as blackmail or a protection racket on the offense and as a MAD on defense. They are effective at both simply because the cost of litigation to defend against or invalidate even bogus patents is insanely high.
This is what makes patent trolls so frustrating. There is no MAD defense since they make nothing, and thus have no exposure to countersuits. On the other hand, the cost of settling is an order of magnitude less than the cost of defeating against them, bogus or not, so the logical response is to "roll over" and pay the license fee. Unfortunately, that just encourages them.
I think this is the main point of this story and this whole issue, and that's what Google wanted to show us. If Google can't even get patents to protect themselves, because all the others keep banding together and not letting them win any auction, then something is very wrong here.
You may say, yeah but then why doesn't Android have its own patents? Well, I don't think it would've been possible for them to get that many patents in this short amount of time, and I don't think it would've been possible for Apple either.
Look at Apple, they are winning with patents not related to smartphones. If Apple wasn't this 30 year old computer company, their patent chest would've probably been close to zero, and a lot of these companies would've come after them, too.
Here's a look at the mobile patents everyone has. You can see Google is not in top 10, but take a closer look - neither is Apple.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-biggest-ip-war-ches...
So what would've happened if Apple didn't have any of their computers patents from before, and they actually were a new smartphone company? They would've probably gotten sued into oblivion as well, especially since they seem to make a lot of money from iPhones. Their handful of mobile patents would've meant nothing in the face of the mobile patent war chest of Nokia, Samsung, Microsoft, HP(Palm patents) and Motorola.
You can't create something as complex as a smartphone and a smartphone OS today, without infringing a ton of patents. So if a new mobile company can be crushed because others have more patents than them, then what does that say about the patent system? It says the patent system does nothing to protect and encourage innovation, but it lets the big incumbent companies crush the new guys with their large patent war chests. It's bad enough when it's just one of them, it's much worse when they all join together against that company.
If you can't build anything complex, without being a 10+ year old company (in that market) and not having thousands of patents - then something is very wrong with the patent system that was supposed to help start-ups and innovation. I think they all know this, but since they know they have the upper hand with current broken system, they will fight to maintain the current system.