Re:Google Patent Purchase Promotion
by tombrossman on Tuesday April 28, 2015 @11:16AM
(#9452939)
> "...and, presuming Google doesn't use patents like a troll..."
Saw this this morning discussing how Google bought Motorola and is now demanding more royalties for "standard-essential patents", after selling off Motorola (and keeping their patents to use in lawsuits like this): https://twitter.com/FioraAeterna/status/592775596712849408
I don't follow this super closely and so can't say if the claim is 100% true, but it sure was interesting to read about.
Reading the geekwite, it is unclear if the lawsuit is about royalties for pre-Google-ownership of patents, or after, or both.
Also, it was Microsoft that targeted Android with patents on things such as FAT32. If you sue me, all gentlemanly agreements are off the table.
Essential patent is a loaded term. I argue all non-trivial patents are essential. If a software patent isn't standard-essential (I'd argue standard is yet another loaded term because FAT32 is a de facto standard for interoperability) it should not be a patent at all. I think you'll agree.
Re:Google Patent Purchase Promotion
by throwawaykf05 on Tuesday April 28, 2015 @05:26PM
(#9455259)
But "taking gentlemanly agreements off the table" is not all they did. For all the noise Google made about abuse of patents in the smartphone wars, they, through Motorola, were the only company that was actually penalized buy a federal court for abusing patents, and made to pay damages to Microsoft. Sure the lawsuit started before Google acquired Motorola, but this judgement happened two years after they completed the acquisition. I'm sure you'll agree that asking billions for patents that a court finally decided were only worth a couple million is pretty egregious.
There are two basic general reasons that a person who would otherwise be willing to sell to an NPE might be interested in selling to Google instead:
1. Google will pay more, and/or
2. Google provides a quicker, easier process for evaluation and decision that means you close the deal and get actual certainty (and the money itself) more quickly and with less of your own time and energy devoted to the process.
Google's effort to established a streamlined process with a "identify your patent and price at which you are committed to sell" up front step, and a well defined set of steps with fairly short time windows leading to a final decision, attempts to address both of those. (Provide a smooth decision process on purchase at the seller's desired price.)
> In this promotion, Google's answer to that question is that at the very least, you can be sure you're not selling to a patent troll.
No, you've got that wrong: that's not the benefit to the seller. That's one of the benefits to Google (and, presuming Google doesn't use patents like a troll, potentially everyone else in the tech industry and everyone indirectly harmed by the drag patent trolls put on the technology market.)