

British Telecom sues Google over Android (and almost everything else) - fpgeek
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/london/british-telecom-sues-google-over-android-and-almost-everything-else/1767

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DiabloD3
I wish companies purporting to publish articles by legitimate journalists
would quit citing Florian Mueller. He is neither a member of the FOSS
community, nor does he have any legal background whatsoever.

~~~
fpgeek
Seconded.

Sadly, as a paid lobbyist, I expect Florian has more time than the rest of us
to look for news in his niche and try to be the first to comment on and share
it (plus there are probably times where a client notifies him directly). Which
is a big reason journalists end up citing him, I suspect.

BTW, for those wanting an example of Florian's bias, he posted about BT's
lawsuit without saying a word about the highly-relevant "hyperlink patent"
background. I'd say that is a pretty good example.

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tomelders
Poor class. Even if you agree that such "things" are patentable, BT has never
brought anything to market that makes use of these patents.

And as a Brit, I take umbrage with BT's choice to enter the patent wars.
They're costly and destructive. If BT wins,Britain will not see reduced costs
for operating and maintaing the infastructure, but if BT lose and get's sucked
into the more and more patent suits, Britain as a whole will foot the bill.

It's reckless. It's cheap. It's undignified and It's just not cricket.

~~~
epo
BT is a private company these days, has been for a long time, how does Britain
as whole foot the bill?

~~~
willyt
BT is a state regulated monopoly in the UK for several of the tiers of the
telecommunications infrastructure. The vast majority of IP packets from
domestic and SME's will pas through their infrastructure at some point.
Simplistically, if their costs go up then presumably their wholesale costs and
everyone's phone bills go up too. In practice their accounts are heavily
scrutinised (at great cost to the taxpayer) so there is probably some kind of
complicated regulatory mechanism that prevents this.

Quick rant as an aside: Utilities and infrastructure tend to be natural
monopolies as it costs so much to get them up and running nobody wants to do
it twice. Competition in infrastructure provision for any given service of
this nature always seems to end up being a wasteful and bureaucratic mess of
government regulated artificially created 'competition' between a few
companies. For more UK examples see British Airports Authority, Network Rail,
Electricity, Gas etc. Infrastructure should allow one country to compete
effectively with others by improving internal efficiency. Perhaps they should
be independent democratically controlled state entities; every citizen gets a
share.

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zimbatm
Why only Google ?

At a first glance, it seems to me that these patents would also cover
Microsoft's Bing and Apple's AppStore(tm). So why target only Google ? Are
they perceived as the weakest link or are they siding with Microsoft/Apple ?

They also have these patents for long, why attack Google now ?

~~~
schwuk
The article told you - licensing. They've been trying to get Google to license
the patents.

Presumably Microsoft and Apple have already licensed them, or come to some
other arrangement.

~~~
corin_
Or possibly they failed with those other companies too, and either a.) hope
their court case will push these deals or b.) plan to take them to court, just
not at the same time as Google.

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epo
I used to work at BT Labs back in the day, there were very, very many smart
engineers and scientists there. BT had a dismal track record of exploiting
anything Labs came up with, then again Labs were very bad at being relevant
and selling themselves to the company.

I could easily believe that Labs (and their predecessors) discovered the key
ideas behind Google many years before they knew what to do with them.

------
kingofspain
No doubt this will go the way of the hyperlink nonsense. BT should really be
thinking a bit bigger though, like British Rail of all people with its flying
saucer (<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4801928.stm>)

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unreal37
It would be a delicious irony if Google, Apple, Microsoft, and IBM
collectively checked their vast patent portfolios and discovered all the ways
BT violates their patents. Sue them out of business.

~~~
guelo
Why would Apple and Microsoft side with Google in any lawsuits when it is
obvious that there is a concerted legal effort against Google?

~~~
fpgeek
Especially since Apple bought at least one patent from BT that it is using to
sue HTC.

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guard-of-terra
I hate how they never did anything useful at all with those patents (at least
for people outside UK) and yet they dare.

Not that I like Google much.

~~~
cloudwalking
Honest question: why don't you like Google? Is there a search engine you
prefer?

~~~
guard-of-terra
This surely isn't an independent opinion because I work for another search
engine (but not on search).

This might also explain my bias against telecoms and toward internet
companies, so my opinion perhaps isn't relevant at all.

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dutchbrit
I thought software/programming related patents weren't valid here in Europe?!
Or am I missing something?

~~~
McP
The patents were filed in the US: [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sec...](http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-
Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6169515.PN.&OS=PN/6169515&RS=PN/6169515)

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Mordor
Cruise missiles used these techniques at least 10 years prior.

~~~
DrJokepu
It's difficult to tell if there's prior art (or infringement for that matter)
without reading the full contents of the patents in question. Being based on
similar principles is not enough, it has to implement the patent exactly as
described in the patent.

