

Microsoft’s Android Plan: Evil Genius Or Just Evil? - desaiguddu
http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/13/scott-you-just-dont-get-it-do-ya/

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brudgers
The whole premise of the article is that the only acceptable reason for
Microsoft to bid on the patents was out of fear that their existing licensing
agreements would be invalidated. With thousands of patents in the portfolio,
and a limited number of them licensed by Microsoft, that premise seems to need
a bit of justification - something which the article lacks.

Furthermore, where is the explanation for Apple's participation? Is it also
evil? What about Intel's failed bid? Evil too? RIM? Consistent attribution of
the motives applied to Microsoft would have all Google's competitors as evil
doers.

Finally, the article goes on to imply that the Nortel portfolio is somehow key
to Microsoft's patent licensing program around Android which does not appear
to be the case because those agreements are based on Microsoft's existing
patent portfolio. (None of which is intended to argue for the merits of patent
licensing.)

~~~
cube13
>Consistent attribution of the motives applied to Microsoft would have _all_
the competitors as evil doers.

Fixed that. You can apply the same reasoning to every single company that made
a bid for the pool, including Google. They shouldn't be singled out as the
lone "non-evil" party here.

Google was most likely licensing some of the 4G tech from Nortel as well.
Getting the patents in their pool, even if Google wouldn't use the patents
offensively, would save them a boatload of cash.

~~~
brudgers
Of course Google shouldn't be singled out, they're just like any other company
only more so. And of course there was no substantial evidence in the article
that Google would refrain from using the patents offensively had they acquired
them.

In the context of the article Google's motives for bidding were attributed to
nobility of purpose, a disinterest in the offensive use of patents and purity
of heart - o.k. maybe not purity of heart.

------
Tyrannosaurs
Neither evil, nor genius, just business.

And let's not pretend that Google were trying to do any different. They didn't
bid $3 billion with Intel for shits and giggles, they did it for exactly the
same reasons Apple, Microsoft et al did they just lost.

~~~
noibl
> let's not pretend that Google were trying to do any different.

Let's not pretend that Google were trying to do something other than: buy a
way to tax hardware makers who choose to run a competitor's OS?

Sometimes patents are defensive.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
So they wouldn't have attempted to get patent fees out of Apple, RIM and
anyone making Windows Phone devices? They'd have just spent $3bn on the
patents to stop anyone else having them.

The whole Google are victims thing is getting pretty tired.

~~~
noibl
> So they wouldn't have attempted to get patent fees out of Apple, RIM and
> anyone making Windows Phone devices?

I believe that's what I implied.

<http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22google+sues%22+patent>

Do you have some reason to think otherwise apart from that it would be bad
business sense in your opinion?

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
From the first page of results on the comparative Google search (ironically):
Google Sues Oregon Company Over Patents for Online Traffic Maps:
[http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a...](http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aZoRwXzkr7dU)

In other legal protection (that is non-patent) they've sued everyone from the
US Government (over their supposed favouring of Microsoft), Microsoft over the
default search engine in IE 7, Froogle over trademark infringement as well as
a whole bunch of counter suits.

If I go past the first five pages (which are dominated by Lodsys and Oracle
limiting the space for other stories) who knows what else but I really don't
have time.

Google are a big company, they have legal muscle and use it, please don't kid
yourself it's otherwise.

~~~
nl
Did you read that first link?

 _Google said it wants a court ruling that its Google Maps feature doesn’t use
inventions patented by closely held Traffic Information LLC. It’s also
challenging the validity of the patents._

They aren't using patents - they are asking for a patent that can be used to
attack them to be invalidated.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
Sorry, my bad.

But the reality is that they do use legal muscle where it works and there have
been other companies who've stated that they only bought patents for defensive
purposes who soon shifted. I honestly can't see Google holding that line - you
may disagree but only time will tell who is right.

I'd also suggest that Google's lack of use of patents in this way so far is
likely as much down to the fact that they have a notoriously weak patent
portfolio (estimated to be one twenty fifth the size of Microsoft's - largely
a function of age rather than intent). Google suing another large company
would be taking a knife to a gun fight.

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Tichy
What would be an example of a Nortel patent that applies to Android? Just
because they have 6000 patents doesn't mean they are useful? Anybody could get
6000 nonsense patents with enough money.

In fact I just wonder, has anybody ever tried to DoS the patent office? If one
application costs 10000$, one billion dollars would buy you one million
potential patents. Something like the "academic paper generator" could be
used.

~~~
lukesandberg
The patent office is already essentially under a DoS. The patent backlog is
between 3-5 years.

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shareme
Biggest OEM example of why this does not work:

In the US we have two big examples:

1\. CDAMA OEMs as they pay a patent fee to Qualcomm. 2\. The OEM Apple uses
for GSM handsets as they pay a patent fee to Nokia via Apple. Did that OEM
suddenly stop making iphones after Nokia won the case?

