Defending Android

http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/15/precious-bodily-patents/

by rtrunck • 15 years ago

56 25 15 years ago

this is either the smartest thing Google has ever done, or the dumbest.

I've said that to myself many times. I've never had it (whatever "it" is) be the smartest thing I've ever done. To be fair, it is rarely the dumbest, either, though it tends to favor that.

If you find yourself thinking a choice will be this polar in outcome, you are probably making the wrong decision.

For the record, I don't think MG is right about this being the (binary) smartest or dumbest decision for Google.

technoslut• 15 years ago

Google is a company that has done very few foolish things so it could easily be the dumbest if it doesn't work out.

asknemo• 15 years ago

Doubt it. The dumbest would have been sitting there and do nothing.

SkyMarshal3• 15 years ago

Is MG ever insightful about anything? I'm not a regular reader, but every time I do read his articles, I feel the deja-vu of reading game console fanboy forum 'debates' from the early 2000s.

That line about smartest or dumbest is silly, not the least b/c it could be both at different times (maybe a terrible idea now, but turns out to be a brilliant one five years from now, or vice versa).

How'd he get that job with Techcrunch again?

aristidb• 15 years ago

You did read it, didn't you? That's why he got that job.

wuster2• 15 years ago

the guy writes War and Peace every day about not much of any real content. I un-bookmarked and un-subcribed TC because of his "prolific" output

rkischuk2• 15 years ago

We are in the midst of the intellectual property Cold War, and it's fascinating to watch. If Google can use Motorola's patents to balance the power in patent suits and avoid $20/device in licensing fees... well, they're activating 550k devices per day, so that's $11M/day in savings. Roughly 3 years to break-even on that basis alone.

Google can use Motorola to force the issues that have plagued Android for a while. Motorola devices will probably become "pure Android" devices like the Nexus series, pushing carriers to abandon the crapware and carrier-specific UIs they're infatuated with.

Most people I know with Motorola Android devices say the build quality is for crap. I hope Google can improve this, but if not, I hope they can at least get the carriers to quit layering garbage on HTC's nice hardware.

SkyMarshal3• 15 years ago

>We are in the midst of the intellectual property Cold War, and it's fascinating to watch.

I find it sad to watch. Any hope of patent reform in the US got a lot bleaker in 2011 due to the billions being spent on defensive portfolios, especially in the mobile space. There's no way these companies are going to let any legislation pass that invalidates their 'investments'. The best we seem to be able to hope for is that Google uses theirs defensively only, or adds them to copyleft-style patent pools like openinventionnetwork.com or openpatents.org. I harbor little hope that Apple or MS would do the same.

rkischuk2• 15 years ago

Sad can be fascinating. It is sad to seem so much cash thrown at failing/failed companies, where it does little to create jobs or encourage innovation.

I do expect Google to use these patents more as a defensive neutralizer than as a means of attack - that's just consistent with their track record.

I hope (but doubt) that our Congress will see the amount of economic value being wasted on IP chess, and reform the system. All it takes is leadership and intelligence, both of which seem to be sorely lacking in government. Thankfully, these companies don't have formal veto power over legislation.

benpbenp• 15 years ago

Couldn't they see patent reform as a way of avoiding having to spend billions more in the future? I suppose it depends on whether each company sees the patent game as a cost or a profit center.

starwed• 15 years ago

Really? I've heard mostly good things about motorola build quality.

Personally, I've had the OG droid for a year and half now, and it is rock solid -- I've taken terrible care of it, drop it on concrete all the time, and yet it still works fine.

bad_user• 15 years ago

The Motorola Droid is a good, solid phone.

My only beef with it is that it's a pretty locked-down phone, which is why I went with Samsung instead.

ChuckMcM• 15 years ago

"We are in the midst of the intellectual property Cold War, and it's fascinating to watch."

I prefer the term 'patent-a-geddon' because it isn't at all like the cold war, no implied threat here, its all out mutually assured destruction. I think it can go either way, toward or away from saner patent law, it will certainly create giant nest eggs for law firms. If the '90s were the dot.com bubble this is perhaps the ip-law bubble.

georgieporgie• 15 years ago

These sorts of developments must really bring hope to the masses of underemployed law grads I've been hearing about.

SkyMarshal3• 15 years ago

Yeah, strike two for patent reform. Billions being spent on patent portfolios + a glut of law school graduates = not good for legislation that could bring sanity to patents.

wuster2• 15 years ago

The Patent Bar is an extra hurdle to law grads, no? Not every underemployed law grad has a patent bar.

fpgeek2• 15 years ago

What is interesting is that the patent defense isn't just about Android... Motorola has a bunch of video patents that are now not problems for WebM. Given the MPEG-LA patent pool, probably not much that can be asserted for MAD, but they've at least defused a number of bombs previously pointed at WebM users.

Anechoic• 15 years ago

>Motorola has a bunch of video patents

Motorola Mobility or Motorola Solutions?

fpgeek2• 15 years ago

Mobility. They go with the STB and video distribution businesses, IIRC.

cageface2• 15 years ago

Citing Florian Mueller as an authority on anything destroys any credibility the article might have had otherwise.

StavrosK3• 15 years ago

Which version of ad hominem is this?

cageface2• 15 years ago

It's an opinion piece. Credibility of sources counts.

blinkingled• 15 years ago

I don't have a problem necessarily with what the article is trying to paint - Motorola acquisition, like many other complex decisions involving lot of factors, can go either way for Google. But that's not the interesting part.

To get at the likelihood of best case and worst case you can't put out the unknowns and assume each unknown is likely to have a bad outcome and then conclude with fear uncertainty and doubt.

One such unknown is credibility of Motorola's patents. Scratch Florian Mueller and MG doesn't know squat about this. No one but Google's lawyers do. In so far as Google's lawyers are not idiots in spending $12.5B on the patents without having some plan on utilizing/monetizing them AND Motorola has actually not lost a patent lawsuit against Microsoft or Apple _yet_ and/or they aren't paying royalties to them yet, it is premature to conclude that Motorola's patents won't go far enough. That's exactly what MG says is likely to be the case.

Then there is the bias, that makes MG again rely on something insubstantial and unverifiable - How the PR notes of various Android OEMs were worded. MG claims that makes the Android OEMs look disingenuous. Less professional, may be - but disingenuous? I don't think so. Patent royalties are a threat to the OEMs and they know it well. If Google could put a patent pool up that they start with 25000 patents and growing and it convinces other manufacturers to contribute to it under the OHA - it benefits the OEM immensely and they know it. What is the other alternative for the OEMs? Go Windows Phone 7? Nice idea but it hasn't made a dent yet and if it does they can be sure to pay what Microsoft damn well demands - including choking their own throats with exclusive licensing agreements. For the OEMs it is clearly in their best interest to go where Google wants them to go. And Motorola for them was always a competitor - that hasn't changed with the acquisition.

Here is another nonsensical thing - MG says Google will be forced to make Motorola design better phones/tablets and that will mean they play partial to Motorola. He ignores the fact that Google is all about more handsets running Android. And Motorola isn't even remotely capable of addressing even 1/3rd of the potential smartphone market worldwide - Google needs HTC/ZTE/Samsung to fill in. Badly. There is just no way Google will want to even try to screw over them. And the OEMs can always up their game and compete well with Motorola on hardware, software update frequency, price and features. That doesn't change. Bottom line? Little incentive for Google to screw over the OEMs and little to no new adverse impact of Motorola to the OEMs.

I wasn't expecting MG to write anything insightful but he asserted at the start of the article that he wasn't going to go all Dan Lyons and start opening his mouth to talk without understanding - so here.

Defending Android

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