
Rockstar, Patent-Holding Firm Partially Owned by Apple & Microsoft, Sues Google - amatheus
http://daringfireball.net/2013/11/rockstar_suit
======
Kylekramer
I just don't buy that everyone is equally a bad actor here. Even if we take
for granted that Google are two faced liars who secretly love patents, their
public messaging is completely different. Google repeatedly has come out
against them. The members of Rockstar brag about their patents, even flaunted
them in the iPhone announcement. That difference is enough to make me draw a
line in between the companies.

Of course, as Gruber's mocking of Android's openness has shown, he believes
attempting to live up to an ideal and failing somewhat is worse than not even
trying. At least when it comes to Google.

~~~
scott_karana
So both sides have different approaches, and are known malevolent actors, but
one is better in your book because of their PR?... :(

~~~
kkowalczyk
Not both sides.

Apple and Microsoft has been waging anti-android patent war for ages, suing
HTC, Samsung, Barns&Noble and many other Android manufacturers.

They are publicly pro-patents and when they are failing in the marketplace are
suing anyone who poses a threat to their business.

Google is publicly against patents, releases a lot of source code under Apache
license that grants patent rights and, as far as I know, haven't launched an
offensive patent suit (i.e. against someone who hasn't sued them first).

The Motorola lawsuits that Gruber (and quite a few anti-Google people) is so
keen to quote happened years before Google acquired Motorola.

At this point I don't even understand why people expect Google to just take it
and not launch offensive against Apple and Microsoft. You can be pro-peace but
if someone points a gun at you and shoot, you shoot back and that's what
Google should do: shoot back.

~~~
IBM
I'd like to know where Apple has been public about patents because I find that
surprising. If anything, there seems to be hardly any corporate communication
addressing these types of things letting the media speculate to their heart's
content.

Your premise about Motorola is incorrect. Google was required to approve the
patent assertions against Apple. 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.

But even if that weren't the case, there would be nothing stopping them from
settling or withdrawing the case.

------
cromwellian
So in Gruber's mind, if someone drops a bomb on your country, and you launch a
retaliatory strike, you're just as bad.

The timeline here would be instructive. Microsoft and Apple sued and
threatened Android OEMs first. Apple's CEO is on record as practicing
'thermonuclear war'. Steve Ballmer gleefully cheered about their patent
licensing. Both companies love patents. Jobs "and booooooy have we patented
it!"

Weaksauce attempt by Gruber at drawing an equivalence.

~~~
IBM
Gruber is pretty clear about what's in his mind, so there's no need for
terrible analogies.

>If you want to argue that the whole patent system stinks, and that all of
these tech giants are abusing it, I agree. But if you want to argue that Apple
and Microsoft are in the wrong, and poor Google and their Android partners are
victims of one-sided abuse, I’m going to have to disagree. If there’s a
difference between Apple/Microsoft and Google in this war, it’s not over
nobility, but rather over how well each side has played the game.

These companies pursue what's in their self-interest, and attempts to portray
Google as being somehow above it are disingenuous, regardless of how high-
minded the PR makes them seem.

~~~
cromwellian
Disingenuous? Let's talk reality. Apple sells hardware, Microsoft has a
licensed software business. Android is a fundamental threat to both
businesses. Google doesn't make any money from Android.

Now, who has an incentive to launch patent lawsuits as an attempt to restrain
competitors? The one whose business model is fundamentally threatened by open,
free operating systems, or those who don't make any money from them? Which
actors have an incentive to try and impose costs on open source? It is
fundamentally not in Google's interest to ban iPhones, as they make money on
iPhones just like they do the desktop Web. A commoditized mobile industry, or
a competitive mobile industry is a net win for Google, only a monopoly
monoculture is a loss for Google. Left to their own devices, Google could
undermine iPhone by just shipping Android for free, no need for legal fights
to undermine it.

Microsoft in particular had a plan to try and stop Linux when it started
eating up the server-side market by launching or threatening patent IP issues,
for much the same reason as the current attacks on Android. The reality is,
the only recourse for proprietary vendors to go after something that is free
is to use the force of government and the courts.

Which company has a founder/CEO who openly proclaimed in inflammatory rhetoric
that he was going to "destroy" and go "thermonuclear"? Which company has
threatened and asserted more patent attacks? You cite a single instance in
which Google inherited a long running fight between Motorola Mobility and
Apple, but completely ignore the fact that Apple has sued pretty much every
Android vendor, and Microsoft has shaken down many. What do you call
Microsoft's shakedown of B&N's Nook? You think that's morally equivalent to
Motorola?

This is about as intellectually honest as the people who try to compare Fox
News to CNN, or claim that the "extreme left" in Congress is just as bad as
the "extreme right", despite the fact that none of the "socialists" in
Congress have brought the government to a two week shutdown, or a debt crisis.

I don't call someone who abuses the system better at "playing the game", that
suggests that this is a fun activity with no moral or ethical repercussions. I
call someone who is better at abusing the legal system MORE immoral than
someone who is doesn't do it as much.

In order words, it is not a game. Calling it one is a disingenuous attempt to
paper over what is disgusting behavior and whitewash it enough that you can
try to draw a moral equivalence by leveling it all out.

Yes, Google is pursuing what is in their self interest, but there is nothing
immoral about releasing stuff as source for free or competing in the
marketplace. It is not evil, despite the fact that Jobs tried to say it was.

What is immoral is gumming up the courts and using the force of the government
to beat your competitors because you can't stop consumers from choosing other
products.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
> Google doesn't make any money from Android.

You might want to rethink that statement. If Google had not bought Android and
built it into the ecosystem it is now, do you think Google had made more money
by now?

> It is fundamentally not in Google's interest to ban iPhones, as they make
> money on iPhones

Google doesn’t sell apps for iOS, but it does pay Apple to be the preferred
search engine in Safari. So that line tells me that you know Google makes
money on Android (the way it always does, by collecting user data to sell ads
– and on ‘Android with Google’ it gets more of that data than anywhere, except
perhaps Glass).

~~~
cromwellian
Google makes money from the Web, primarily from Search. Android is an
insurance policy against a world in which Bing is the default search engine.
An insurance policy is a cost in case something bad happens.

It is well known fact that Google makes far more money on mobile ads on iOS
than Android.

Google's interests are for people to use the Web as much as possible, and
therefore, to make it as cheap as possible to get on the web and spend all
your time there. That is, Google's interests are aligned with the interests of
the consumers to have downward price pressure on mobile devices.

Apple's interest is to maintain margins, it is fundamentally against the
interest of consumers in that regard, and therefore, it has a large motive to
restrict trade of competitors.

Competition is in the interest of consumers, and therefore these abuses of the
patent system are also not in the interests of the public. Apple should stop
it, and the government should reform the system.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
> Google makes far more money on mobile ads on iOS than Android.

That’s small potatoes. What I’m talking about is the data Google collects
while you’re online and logged in with a Google account or using an ‘Android
with Google’ device. From your geolocation to your contacts, to the websites
you visit, to the searches you perform, to the documents you create in Apps,
etc etc.

That is data Google can use to display targeted ads on any device that is tied
to you, not only on its Google search engine, but on the majority of websites
on the Internet (Google owns DoubleClick.)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubleclick](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubleclick)

~~~
cromwellian
"Can use". Emphasis on CAN. Display Ads constitute about 12% of Google
revenues, the degree to which people imagine Google use's personal data for
targeting, and the actual reality are far apart.

The reality is, Google makes more money on AdWords through Google searches,
and so the default search engine is far more important.

~~~
Samuel_Michon
Given that Google is a publicly traded company, I think it’s a question of
‘when’ instead of ‘if’ it will trade on user data more than they do now. It
only takes a flip of a switch.

That’s why companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter have the market value
they do. Any of those can at any time flip the switch to cash in on the user
data and mindshare they’ve collected.

Apple has a very different business model. It hasn’t shown any interest in
user data (past credit card information) and doesn’t even have the
infrastructure to exploit it. Because Apple is so inept in web services, I
don’t mind them having my information on file, while I worry about what Google
does with my information even when I’m not logged into its services.

------
cageface
Life very rarely presents us with simple black & white choices, but that
doesn't mean that it's not important to make distinctions among distinctly
different shades of gray. Don't let party apparatchiks like Gruber fool you
with their smoke & mirrors. This is nothing more than an attempt by Apple &
Microsoft to accomplish in the courtroom what they have failed to achieve in
the marketplace. We have it straight from the Cupertino horse's mouth that
this is a "nuclear war" designed to destroy Android.

If this succeeds it will set a very dangerous and chilling precedent for the
development of any new technology going forward. Anyone that claims to value
innovation and opportunity for new ideas should condemn it.

~~~
pazimzadeh
The idea that Apple is using to go on the offensive because they are "failing
in the marketplace" is ridiculous, since extensive patents were touted during
the iPhone's 2007 introductory keynote.

Also, what evidence is there that Google is still committed to making Android
open source even since Andy Rubin left the project?

Finally, I don't know enough about Andy Rubin's relationship with Apple, but
can somebody who does comment on this?
[http://www.fosspatents.com/2011/09/apple-to-itc-andy-
rubin-g...](http://www.fosspatents.com/2011/09/apple-to-itc-andy-rubin-got-
inspiration.html)

~~~
cageface
There's a world of difference between filing protective patents and using
patents offensively against your competitors. Until fairly recently, this was
considered to be something that was largely beneath the dignity of the big
players in the industry.

And, even if Android were completely closed, it would still occupy the higher
moral ground since Google did not instigate this war and would be happy to see
it end.

~~~
pazimzadeh
What if to Apple, the war started when Eric Schmidt stayed on Apple's board of
directors while Google was developing a direct competitor to the iPhone?

~~~
cageface
Or perhaps, earlier still, when Apple revealed their intention to roll out a
platform over which they had complete gatekeeper control over any third party
software installation?

------
naner
_The difference between Lodsys and Rockstar is that Lodsys is a bully, suing
small (and in some cases, downright tiny) companies that lack the financial
wherewithal to fight back. And in fact, when Lodsys’s targets do fight back,
Lodsys runs away — settling for nothing in order to avoid a trial. Rockstar
may be a patent troll, but they’re a patent troll that at least is picking on
someone its own size._

Lodsys is _almost_ the antihero here. They are just being exploitative which
is dumb and obnoxious. If only they were explicitly attacking Apple,
Microsoft, and Oracle's ecosystems. Dishing out the abuse towards their small
innocent customers. Using the system these companies have expanded and propped
up to really hurt them. And say, "Hey, this is what we are doing. Maybe you
should fix this Congress."

------
weixiyen
The patent system is to blame here.

Android is shipping on more units than any other OS and Google is going to win
if things continue this way based on current trends. They are probably not far
away from getting Android to a similar level of polish as iOS within the next
few years. There's only so much you can improve on in terms of the OS software
before you hit the point of diminishing returns.

At this point, the trends are clear, Google will win the mobile OS war. There
is really no other likely outcome at this point unless Apple does something
drastic.

In business, it is pretty much expected that public companies will act in the
best interest of its own stakeholders, so this lawsuit was just something that
had to happen. You can't blame Apple or Microsoft for this. This is what you
do as a business to protect your products and removing your barriers to entry,
or you fall off the mobile rocket ship.

Also, honest question, but why do people get so upset over this blog? I just
looked up John Gruber on Wikipedia and his full time job is maintaining a blog
to write about Apple products, with a history of being an "Apple Apologist".
We're we expecting him to write something different?

------
pearjuice
From what I've understood he is actually defending and white knighting Apple's
patent trolling.

For anyone still in doubt whether Gruber is actively paid by Apple (and
possibly others) to deliver viral marketing - here you go.

------
suprgeek
So Rockstar - an NPE patent Troll by definition - filing lawsuits against
Google & Samsung is the same as Motorola filing lawsuits according to Gruber.
Except Motorola has - you know - actual products that it sells. Additionally
this company was created by the Apple + M.S Cartel explicitly to go after
Google and Android - not to create any value, only to harass and stifle a
competitor.

Sometimes Gruber gets so wrapped up in his own B.S. that he starts defending
the scummy actions of Apple - sad.

