Patent Battles: Who are the Trolls?

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diogen

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Apr 16, 2007
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With the mobile (smartphone and tablet) market growing at around 100% per year clip, everybody is trying to grab a piece of the pie. Even patent trolls.
Few articles were published recently about IV (Intellectual Ventures) run by former Microsoft CIO Nathan Myhrvold
Why won't Intellectual Ventures answer questions about its relationship with Lodsys? | Technology | guardian.co.uk
iOS devs put out a call to unite against Lodsys, other patent trolls
Intellectual Ventures And The War Over Software Patents : Planet Money : NPR

But considering the amassed patent chest by the big players (Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, IBM, etc.), vicious bidding war for patent portfolio on sale (Nortel), the line between trolls and non-trolls is getting really blurry.

I still believe in
diogen said:
Negotiations times are over. From now going forward "the one with more lawyers wins"....
Click to expand...
but just as the Lodsys case shows, it is getting harder to have one's cake and eat it too...:)

DIogen.
 
After the Nortel patent sale fetched more than expected, InterDigital is looking to monetize their patent portfolio
Samsung Is Said to Examine InterDigital

The usual suspects - Apple, Samsung, Google (no mention of Microsoft) - are looking into bidding for it...

Diogen.
 
An interesting look at the possible outcomes of those latest patent wars
What If Android Lost the Patent War? | News & Opinion | PCMag.com
Furthermore the licensing fees may not be as high as you think. For instance it is widely reported that HTC pays around $40 in royalties for each smartphone it makes, including about $5 to Microsoft. When determining the cost of royalties, the court decides based on what's "reasonable." Numerous factors are involved in the calculation, but generally the amount is around the same price the infringer would have paid if it had negotiated a license from the get-go, says David Smith, chairman of Tynax, a patent exchange.
Click to expand...

Diogen.
 
Motorola is considering jumping into the "trolling" business
Sanjay Jha hints at Motorola's plans to collect patent royalties from Android competitors -- Engadget

It's certainly not the CEO's idea. It was proposed a while ago by one of the investors and quoted here
Analyst: 25,000 to 120,000 Xooms sold. Motorola Mobility's survival at risk - Apple 2.0 - Fortune Tech
Rather than trying to innovate on software, selectively attacking with patents other Android phone OEM's is a better strategy.
Click to expand...

The Book of Jobs wisdom about "great artists steal" and how to make money off of this spreading habit is more popular by the day...

Diogen.
 
The mobile patent landscape gets more complicated with Google acquiring Motorola (and the 24K patents it has/applied for).

The obvious good news: Moto won't join the troll bandwagon, i.e. trying to get other Android handset manufacturers pay a license per device.
The obvious bad news: Google will be seen as a competitor to those manufacturers going forward.

What to watch for next:
Will Google try to intervene in Apple's lawsuits against Samsung and HTC?
Will they settle the Microsoft vs. Motorola suit?
Will Google create a patent pool Android handset manufacturers can tap into?

I think webOS' chances to actually make it just inched up a bit...:)

Diogen.
 
The official word
As of January 2011, Motorola will own approximately 24,500 patents and patent applications, worldwide... Our patent portfolio generally relates to wireless, audio, video, security, user interface and product design... Our Mobile Devices business segment will have approximately 14,600 granted patents and 6,700 pending patent applications, worldwide. Our patent portfolio includes numerous patents related to various industry standards, including 2G, 3G, 4G, H.264, MPEG-4, 802.11, open mobile alliance (OMA) and near field communications (NFC). The Home business segment will have approximately 1,900 granted patents and 1,300 pending patent applications, worldwide. Further, we believe our portfolio of patents in 4G will position our customers well in the upcoming technology transition from 2G to 3G.
Click to expand...

Google might feel more comfortable not only with safety of Android, but also with their efforts to move away from H.264 and a better shot at the TV set-top box market...

If Google manages to build a defensive patent pool (and get Samsung and LG to join them) they might be able to indemnify Android handset makers...

Diogen.
 
diogen said:
I think webOS' chances to actually make it just inched up a bit...:)

Diogen.
Click to expand...
After Thursday's news from HP, the World may never know...

Things can certainly change quickly in this business.
 
Patents or not, Samsung is hedging its bets
South Korea brings the big guns to the mobile OS knife fight - Engadget

Not that they didn't do this before: Bada was introduced in 2010 (BSD-based)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bada_(operating_system)

And the most interesting part, it managed to gain 4% market share in just 2 quarters, primarily in continental Europe
The fate of mobile phone brands | asymco

NOTE:
Bada is not really an OS, but a platform that can use different kernels.
The existing version borrows from different flavours of BSD but can use Linux just as well.
Makes it easier to switch the kernel (if Google starts playing favorites or if Oracle wins its suit against Google)
without a drastic change in user interface...

Diogen.
 
Apple are the TROLLS in this patent war. They are suing everybody in sight. Samsung even sells them a large majority of their ios device panels, but that didn't stop Apple from suing them. No question Android has copied some features from ios, but ios has copied stuff from Android as well. They flat out copied Android's notification system with ios 5. They must have great lawyers! I still love them. :)
 

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