Microsoft Wins Trial on Google’s Patent Licensing Tactics

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-05/microsoft-wins-trial-on-google-s-patent-licensing-tactics.html

by jmcintyre • 13 years ago

44 17 13 years ago

bloomberg.com

chatman• 13 years ago

Do no evil. Google exploring borderline evil tactics.

realcul• 13 years ago

Borderline?...4 billion for Frand patents...lol

praxulus• 13 years ago

This lawsuit was based on events from a year before the Google acquisition.

I'm not saying Google is good or bad, but this isn't evidence of either.

throwawaykf022• 13 years ago

Microsoft cast the first stone in October 2010, and made its FRAND allegations in November 2010 [1]. Google announced its acquisition of Motorola in August 2011 [2] and completed it in May 2012 [3]. This decision comes more than a year after the close.

Granted, regulatory concerns did not allow it to affect the lawsuit until the acquisition closed (other than maybe the extreme measure of abandoning the acquisition itself)... But a year is a long time -- and many, many settlement opportunities -- to pursue a lawsuit to its bitter end, especially with all the disapproving judgements they were getting [1]. I think "evil" is a stupid term used too readily around these parts, but I also think a year is more than enough time for Google to bear responsibility for this.

Essentially, Google decided to bear the negative publicity (if any) of being convicted of pursuing unfair business practices rather than settle with Microsoft.

Judgements of "evilness" aside, given that Google is pretty savvy about its public perception, this probably has a few significant implications.

1. http://www.patentprogress.org/cases/microsoft-v-motorola-inc...

2. http://investor.google.com/releases/2011/0815.html

3. http://investor.google.com/releases/2012/0522.html

300bps• 13 years ago

...and yet Google vows to appeal right in the article.

jkn• 13 years ago

What is evil about a high opening bid? Especially when it has been the standard official royalty rate of Motorola for years..

bsdetector• 13 years ago

An impossibly high "opening bid" is not an opening bid at all, it's a threat. It says, "sure we said FRAND, but now that it's in the standard we changed our mind, now empty your pockets". Extortion is evil.

cremnob• 13 years ago

I expect Google to write-down Motorola eventually. The patents seem pretty worthless thus far.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/26/4271432/does-anyone-know-w...

enupten• 13 years ago

All big companies are the same, little companies are evil in their own way.

brokenparser• 13 years ago

Hopefully MSFT will buy the full version when the trial expires.

ethana2• 13 years ago

Ha! It's shareware like WinRAR. They could just click the x button.

ethana2• 13 years ago

Maybe the YouTube app fiasco was a preemptive strike.

comex• 13 years ago

FOSS Patents on this: http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/09/jury-quickly-reaches-verd...

(Usual disclaimer: You can agree or disagree with him, but he provides a useful factual context for the decision.)

magicalist• 13 years ago

he provides a useful factual context for the decision

Ugh, no he doesn't. The very first thing he states is wrong. A jury ruling does not establish case law.

He really is just a self-aggrandizing pundit, and even if he wasn't terrible, he'd still be a pundit. He's even gotten worse over time, as half of each of his articles now is just pointing out how the weasel words he used to describe upcoming cases in previous posts turned out to be totally true. Who on earth cares that the damages turned out to be relatively small, but hey, earlier he wrote that the monetary amount didn't matter?

Don't give him link juice. The OP Bloomberg article contains a large amount of context for the case.

throwawaykf022• 13 years ago

Who on earth cares that the damages turned out to be relatively small, but hey, earlier he wrote that the monetary amount didn't matter?

Well, actually he said the legal implications will matter more than the money, so that's something reasonably vague that he can point to later on if something fits that description and say, "see, I told you so."

Similarly he didn't say "this jury ruling will create case law". It's worded a lot more indirectly than that.

All his articles are like that, with lots of little predictions hedged by weasel words. As such, with all that hedging he ends up appearing to be right frequently, and he never misses a chance to link to any previous posts where "he had said so before".

But because he's careful to always hedge his bets, I find him to be more accurate than most pundits out there, who make bold claims and are either surprisingly correct or, more likely, end up eating claim chowder.

What annoys me more is the hard-on he has for Google -- the "Google micromanaged" Motorola Mobility division? Really?

bsullivan01• 13 years ago

Motorola Mobility didn’t act in good faith when it demanded patent royalties from Microsoft Corp

Duh! Nothing in these lawsuits is in good faith, all is done to screw the other side. MS got lucky Motorola played it dumb and lost. Asking 2.25% of the sale price just for a small portion of one feature takes b-lls. Being FRAND patents and all, no one forced Motorola to add their patents to standards.

U.S. District Judge James Robart, who presided over the trial, determined in April that the appropriate royalty rate was about a half-cent per unit for video-decoding technology and 3 1/2 cents for wireless technology. Microsoft said that would equal about $1.8 million a year.

Is this legally binding, assuming it's held on appeal?

Microsoft Wins Trial on Google’s Patent Licensing Tactics

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