
Motorola wins Xbox and Windows 7 ban in Germany - alsothings
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17924190
======
nextparadigms
Live by the sword, die by the sword. I don't feel bad for Microsoft. It's just
a testament that a patent war helps no one, not even the companies with a lot
of patents that were the aggressors. In the end it's just mutual destruction.

I mean, Microsoft even went after companies to pay them royalties for
ChromeOS...really, Microsoft?! I hope Motorola does the same to them now and
asks for royalties for Windows 7. Something tells me they'll get a lot more
for it.

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andyking
Is it just me who finds these little spats between huge companies a little
tedious? It doesn't affect my life, or my work, if Microsoft or Adobe or Apple
takes Google or Motorola or Samsung to court for another expensive round of
willy-waving.

I find it incredibly hard to want to cheer for any of these organisations, or
get behind any of this stuff. These are just big, faceless corporations, each
the same as the next, when it comes down to it. It's a bit like supporting
professional sports teams, I guess.

~~~
m0nty
My "take-away" from all this is that, if this can affect Microsoft so
profoundly, how much more damage could be done to startups and small
businesses in the technology arena? Most of them couldn't afford the fees to
start the legal process, let alone pay for a protracted fight on obscure areas
of copyright.

~~~
hef19898
It could actually kill a lot of them. Patents are just fine as long as they
are used defesivly. If they are not they can ruin everything.

Some effects I can imagine:

\- Potential competitors aren't bought but sued to death.

\- It could be harder to get founding if your situation is not sure, investors
could loose their money

Consequence will be that start-ups will become more expensive again...

~~~
rbanffy
> Patents are just fine as long as they are used defesivly

Not really. Good patents are fine, but in order to use a patent defensively,
you'll have to defend against something, most likely the abuse of an actual
patent (be it a good one or not).

And it's certainly sweet to see Microsoft tasting its own poison. They have
extorted just about every Android set maker (or Linux embedder) with a secret
list of patents they paid Barnes & Noble US$ 300 million to keep secret.

BTW, this seems to be the soft spot of their armor - future litigants should
press hard for the list to be made public. Microsoft will settle before
risking exposing a weak hand.

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zimbatm
"It follows a ruling that Microsoft had infringed two patents necessary to
offer H.264 video coding and playback."

Oh the irony. Wasn't the MPEG LA consortium supposed to guarantee protection
against that kind of attack ?

Any details on the infringing patents ?

~~~
scott_w
While I don't know the patents, the MPEG-LA can only protect against the
patents that are committed to that specific portfolio.

Even if Motorola are a member of the MPEG-LA, if they are suing for a patent
that they have not committed to the MPEG-LA, then Microsoft have no
protection.

About the worst that could happen is Motorola get kicked out of MPEG-LA.

~~~
bad_user
I don't think getting kicked out of MPEG-LA is so easy. If Motorola is a
member and does have patents committed to their pool, wouldn't a kick mean
that those patents that are submitted would no longer be part of the package?
If that's true, then Motorola would have even more bullets.

This only goes to show how nobody is protected from patents, even if you're
careful about buying licenses.

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avar
So Motorola Mobility brought the matter to German courts, who agreed to ban
those products, but "a US court has banned Motorola from enforcing the action
until it considers the matter next week.".

How is a ban Motorola has solicited under German law under the jurisdiction of
a US court, or am I misunderstanding this?

~~~
loverobots
Makes no sense to me either but since Motorola is a US company as well, MS
might have found an opening.

Banning Windows sales in entire Germany is no child's game, if enforced and
then reversed Motorola might go bankrupt. Simple as that.

~~~
taligent
Google owns Motorola now.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
Not yet it doesn't. They're still working on the final elements of the deal
(approval in China I believe), though it will almost certainly go through
before any such liability might become due.

And for clarity, it's Motorola Mobility they're buying, not all of Motorola.

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X4
It's no news that German courts are favored for patent infringements, because
they mostly play well.

I've even seen a reportage about this topic, that covers why large companies
fight patent lowsuits in Germany. It's because Germany has understood how to
capitalize on this "new market".

Tax route optimizations, patent-pool leverage, secret partnership agreements,
HR Capital squeezers, talent headhunters, innovation buyout..is that out of an
"imperators guide to the 21st century"?

~~~
soc88
Is this based on actual facts or did you just make that up?

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pmjordan
Okay, someone please explain this to me: I thought a few years back we had all
this uproar about the EU wanting to introduce patentability of software. They
eventually backed down, if I remember correctly. Now a German court rules that
Windows 7, a piece of software, infringes upon a patent. What?

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dthunt
Links to patents? I haven't been able to find them.

I notice that people are very quick to attack Microsoft here, despite the fact
that a great many parties have been touting h.264 as a standard to adopt, and
acting like it wasn't a morass of patents and lawsuits waiting to happen.
Granted, one of those parties was Microsoft.

Depending on what's in the patents at issue, maybe there is a lesson here
about making sure that the standards we approve of aren't encumbered by
patents.

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hef19898
Thats the patent version of what would have happened if the US and USSR had
started throwing nukes around...

I always thought patents were there to protect against such attacks, a balance
of awe and destruction. But who the heck was stupid enough to start that?
Seriously, replacing development and business operations by law suites only
will get you so far.

Maybe I should switch careers and become a patent lawyer!

~~~
Retric
Failing companies have no reason to avoid the patent wars.

~~~
zschallz
Reminds me of grain/food aid given to the USSR during hard times. Even the
Cold War US was afraid of what could happen with weapons of mass destruction
during desperate times.

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Tyrannosaurs
Microsoft may not be what it once was but they're a big enough beast that I'd
be thinking twice about this sort of move.

But that's kind of micro level stuff, at the macro level it's just another
volley in the on-going patent wars where it seems that lawyers will win and
the companies and the consumers lose.

Common sense says it will end soon but it really doesn't feel like that's
happening.

~~~
beedogs
Call me a pessimist, but I don't see IP law in general ever getting any
better.

~~~
ma2rten
Call me an optimist. But I think some time soon there will be such a
ridiculous lawsuit, that even politicians/the electorate will see that it's
time to review IP laws.

~~~
JonoW
I think the problem is that all the companies involved (Apple, Microsoft,
Google etc) are American; if the products of one American company are banned
somewhere, another American company will invariably benefit. I think if an
American companies products were being banned in the US to the benefit of a
non-US company, only then will US law-makers start raising their eyebrows.

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phoboslab
I love this. This is what you get for betting on patent encumbered formats.
Maybe WebM wasn't such a bad idea after all...

~~~
taligent
You don't get it do you.

EVERY company in the industry has now been given carte blanche to completely
ignore FRAND principles and sue everyone after a standard has been adopted.

This is the worst precedent to hit the industry in a long time.

~~~
phoboslab
It's not clear that Motorola didn't offer "fair, reasonable and non-
discriminatory terms" for licensing. Microsoft claims licensing would cost
them $4bn/year; Motorola disputes this claim.

Also, who is to say that $4bn/year isn't "fair" when video is an essential
part of Microsofts products?

Don't get me wrong, I hate patents as much as everyone else here, but I still
think this lawsuit poses as a _very_ nice example of why free video/audio
codecs are important.

We had the same shit with LZW/GIF patents a decade earlier and all the
warnings were ignored and laughed at ("Nerds with tinfoil hats" ~Gruber).
Microsoft (and Apple) doesn't deserve better for their arrogant stance on this
issue.

~~~
cube13
>It's not clear that Motorola didn't offer "fair, reasonable and non-
discriminatory terms" for licensing. Microsoft claims licensing would cost
them $4bn/year; Motorola disputes this claim.

It's not clear why Motorola should be able to do in the first place. If
Motorola's patents cover encoding and decoding of H.264, those patents should
be in MPEG LA's pool. However, Motorola is not listed as licensor on the
website(<http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx> ).
Since the pool covers all the essential patents related to encoding and
decoding H.264, why isn't Motorola included in the list?

~~~
soc88
Nobody is forced to join the MPEG LA, in fact their behavior is pretty much
illegal. They are explicitly banned to claim, assume or declare that it is
impossible to encode/decode videos without a license from them. Which is
pretty much what they do.

~~~
cube13
That's tangential to the problem at hand. MPEG LA's entire purpose for
existing is to be a one stop shop for the essential H.264 codec patents. So
instead of going to MS, Apple, Samsung, Hitachi, etc. individually, you just
go to MPEG LA, get a license, then go on with your life.

Motorola is not on that list, and have not granted their patents. However,
since they're asserting that it covers the encoding and decoding of H.264,
it's questionable whether or not they can assert them against H.264 codecs. In
fact, the US courts have invalidated patents that were not declared to the
pool before. See dpark's post: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3919324>

~~~
soc88
Thanks for rephrasing.

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white_devil
What's actually a bit worrying about this, is that the scourge of sleazy
greed-lawsuits has spread to Europe. It used to be a purely American
phenomenon.

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chris_wot
It will be interesting to see what happens when Microsoft uninstalls Windows 7
from all those machines. How is this recall going to be done?!?

~~~
muyuu
The irony is that they're able to stop all their security updates, even self-
destroy with their home-calling mechanisms.

I'd love it if Motorola went all-in about it.

~~~
taligent
I bet you would love it. But think about it. Motorola can now extort
ridiculous royalties from every company that provides:

DVD Players, Projectors, Video Cameras, Digital Cameras, Smartphones, Tablets,
Operating Systems, Browsers, Portable Media Players, Consoles, TVs, Media
Centers, PVRs.

~~~
muyuu
The current situation is a joke. No small player can get above the radar at
basically anything software or else they risk being sued out of business. Big
players calculate their movements because they all have a big portfolio and
they reach agreements. Most people cannot resort to this.

Hopefully a clusterfuck between two industry giants will cause a fundamental
change in the rules of the game.

I wish all the devices you mentioned would be outlawed overnight to force a
decided reaction. I'm willing to go full OSS and open formats, I'm mostly
there anyway. Remember static GIFs? Here's hoping they do enforce all these
patents to the fullest.

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pjmlp
Maybe only with such actions, the patent law finally gets reformed.

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joelthelion
>Microsoft moved its European software distribution centre from Germany to the
Netherlands last month ahead of the verdict to minimise potential disruption.

The law doesn't really apply to these software giants, they'll always find a
way around it.

~~~
DanBC
You see MS obeying the law, causing considerable disruption to their setup
(changing a distribution centre from one country to another is pretty big
move) and you say that they are "finding a way around it"?

~~~
willvarfar
Isn't that _exactly_ what MS are doing by moving their operations?

"Finding a way around it" does not imply they are avoiding any cost in doing
so.

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nickik
It like with poletics at one point you just have to laught because nothing
makes any sence anymore. It just ...

Its not this case but the general state of these laws.

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TomGullen
> Microsoft has said that if it met all of Motorola's demands it would face an
> annual bill of $4bn (£2.5bn).

Eh? Is this their defence?

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MarlonPro
Motorola wins. Germans lose :-(

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grovulent
Ludicrous...

I really have nothing else to say.

