Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google

Re:Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar... by IBM on Friday November 01, 2013 @05:14AM (#6652610)

They haven't done it because they don't have many patents. It's easy to act noble about how you'll use your patents when you don't have any. Other commenters have noted that Google is currently suing Apple and others over standards essential patents (no just because the lawsuit started before their acquisition closed doesn't mean anything, they could settle or withdraw their case). Google had the opportunity to join a consortium with Microsoft to bid on the Novell patents, they declined. They could have joined this consortium as well but they decided to bid for it alone. Not only would it have shared the costs among the group, but it would have also prevented each other from suing over them. Google clearly wanted to control these patents themselves so that they could extract licensing deals from others, something that isn't so easy to do when you just have a license for a patent.

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Re:Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar... by air on Friday November 01, 2013 @05:37AM (#6652697)

Because Google bought Motorola after Motorola-Apple fight started, the aggressor is a bit more complicated, but still pretty clear cut to me:

Whichever side that is not willing to end the patent fight (without payments to either side) is the aggressor.

And it seems to me Apple is the one not willing to quit.

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Re:Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar... by IBM on Friday November 01, 2013 @05:46AM (#6652726)

Well considering Apple was willing to actually pay a small amount rather than no payment at all, I don't see how you can see them as the aggressor. Motorola clearly stated that they wanted more for it.

It seems like Google had more control over whether that lawsuit was filed than I thought. From FOSS Patents:

>A few months after that Zeitgeist talk, in January 2012, Google authorized a Motorola Mobility lawsuit against Apple over six patents in the Southern District of Florida. The merger agreement was publicly available and absolutely unequivocal about the fact that Motorola needed Google's consent prior to bringing new IP assertions while the merger was under antitrust review.

EDIT: Since it's not letting me reply to your comment, gonna post it here.

If you're talking about Motorola vs. Apple in general now, clearly Apple wasn't the aggressor. Motorola was the first to sue over patents prompting Apple to counter-sue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Mobility_v._Apple_Inc.

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Re:Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar... by air on Friday November 01, 2013 @05:55AM (#6652750)

You forget that Apple has their own patent suits against Motorola that they are not dropping. Ending the fight would mean that both drop their patent suits. Seems to me that GoogleMotorola wants this and Apple doesn't.

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Re:Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar... by czr80 on Friday November 01, 2013 @06:55AM (#6652910)

What's your evidence for that claim?

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Re:Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar... by air on Friday November 01, 2013 @08:06AM (#6653091)

I think it's pretty clear when you read things like

http://googleblog.blogspot.fi/2011/08/when-patents-attack-an...

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Re:Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar... by aroch on Friday November 01, 2013 @09:21AM (#6653464)

I don't think it's pretty obvious when you cite the blog for a company involved. Google's been fairly cavalier in infringing some patents (Regardless of whether their good patents, Google knew they were infringing). It should also be noted that the biggest Android player apart from Google, Samsung, has taken to suing aggressively.

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Re:Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar... by Malician on Friday November 01, 2013 @05:26PM (#6656561)

I understand you to be arguing that it is not clear that Google would, if given the choice, drop all patent litigation (sued and suing), and Apple would not?

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Re:Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar... by air on Friday November 01, 2013 @06:23AM (#6652832)

Replying to your edit:

Yes, in the Motorola-Apple suit, Motorola was the aggressor and the bad guy. But when Google bought them, Apple had already counter-sued them. That's why I defined the aggressor between Google and Apple as one that is not willing to quit.

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Re:Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar... by mtgx on Friday November 01, 2013 @06:10AM (#6652786)

These patents are also FRAND patents from what I can tell, so I wonder how long it will take for the governments to intervene.

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Re:Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar... by Thirsty on Friday November 01, 2013 @05:19AM (#6652634)

>"Google clearly wanted to control these patents themselves so that they could extract licensing deals from others..."

Has Google ever extracted licensing deals from others?

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Re:Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar... by IBM on Friday November 01, 2013 @05:33AM (#6652685)

They've certainly tried to against Microsoft but they failed. Microsoft and Apple were required by the government to license their standards related patents under reasonable terms to anyone before this Nortel patent portfolio buy was cleared. As far as I know none of them are trying to sue over SEPs. I don't even think this lawsuit contains patents related to standards, but it's kind of a moot point because no company actually has a controlling interest in Rockstar. It's all John Veschi and other former Nortel employees who run their company.

http://allthingsd.com/20130905/microsoft-trounces-google-in-...

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Re:Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar... by eliasmacpherson on Friday November 01, 2013 @08:05AM (#6653085)

I find your username amusing given the context of this thread. IBM could stand to make some money by licencing out some of their patents as they have done in the past:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/yahoo-was-licensing-paten...

http://news.yahoo.com/facebook-buys-patents-ibm-defend-itsel...

Incidentally if anyone is told their work is to be patented and will only be used in defense - bear the above behaviour in mind, over time, companies will not just use patents in defense.

Ha, it seems I'm a bit late to make that prediction - it's already happened.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-14/google-purchases-1-...

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