
Apple Made A Deal With The Devil (No, Worse: A Patent Troll) - llambda
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/09/apple-made-a-deal-with-the-devil-no-worse-a-patent-troll/
======
oniTony
This is really really messed up. Besides the usual patent troll options of:

\- (costly) settle

\- (costly) fight

There is now a third option of:

\- (profitable!) join the bandwagon, not get sued (by this particular
company), strengthen your own IP defence position by gaining licenses to the
entire portfolio that was threatening you in the first place. There's even
profit-share for settlement revenue!(Edit: profit-share might be for "board"
seats only, but it sounds like it costs IP contributions to get in anyway.)
All for a low low cost of transferring over some patents (that are just
licensed right back to you). Of course this just enables more of the other
companies to get sued.

This has a potential to get really out of hand, really fast. :(

~~~
joe_the_user
Yes,

Once you accept the framework of software patents and all its implication, you
have embarked on the project of dividing up the "digital commons".

And to do that, you just need an "alliance of the willing" - ie, you first
gather together the muscle power needed to control the turf and then divide
the spoils. There's no idealism and no distinction between patent troll and
"real company" once the company is playing the intellectual property game.

------
SomeCallMeTim
I don't get why they didn't mention a very obvious reason why Apple would sell
a patent to a patent troll:

They want the troll to sue someone with whom they have a reciprocal patent
portfolio license.

Most big companies are members of lots of these agreements, where any patent
owned by one company is licensed to the other, and vice versa.

If Apple is simply a licensee of the patent now, and doesn't own it, then
presumably it wouldn't be part of their reciprocal licenses with other
companies any more, and the troll would be able to sue?

Please correct me if I'm wrong, here. (The most likely way I could be wrong is
that the standard reciprocal agreements cover all patents owned during the
term of the license, in perpetuity -- i.e., selling a patent doesn't
invalidate the reciprocal license. Even then, they may be planning to sign a
new reciprocal patent license with, say, Samsung, who just won the ability to
block shipments of iOS devices that support HPSA, but they still want someone
else to be able to sue Samsung...?)

~~~
fpgeek
AFAIK, Apple's most prominent cross-licensees are Microsoft and Nokia. If
you're right, this looks like part of a pre-emptive strike against WP7. That
is at least a bit surprising because the previous indications had been that
Apple was fine with a iOS / Windows Phone duopoly in mobile.

~~~
jsnell
Note that a few months back Microsoft and Nokia sold a very significant amount
of patents (reportedly 2000) to a patent troll company.

------
MBlume
Remember that the primary power the average HN reader has to fight abuses like
this is simply _not to work_ for the companies that engage in this chicanery.
Good hackers are valuable, and companies fight for them. When companies do
things most hackers consider evil, it should hurt them.

~~~
sunahsuh
This is the same individualistic fallacy that comes up over and over again.
Yes, individual actions matter for your own personal integrity, but focusing
on those as a solution to what is essentially a systemic problem ignores root
causes.

Society is a system that's just waiting to be hacked, if you're willing to
start seeing it that way.

~~~
feralchimp
Society is a system made up of point-masses of personal integrity (or lack
thereof). "The system" didn't make Apple decide to fuck over consumers by
jumping on board with a patent troll; that decision was made by a group of
specific persons who deserve neither my respect or my business.

Don't reward moral cowardice by hacking your own mind into considering it
"just the way things are." Make the bastards work a little harder to buy you
out, at least.

~~~
pavedwalden
I think I agree with sunahsuh. When a system is stacked in a certain
direction, appeals to personal responsibility can win battles but will lose
the war. In the prisoner's dilemma, we can hope for mutual co-operation, but
until the rules of the game change it's nearly inevitable that defectors will
make out better.

------
juliano_q
Interesting how recently I am feeling more guilty using my Apple products
(Macbook, iPod) and less guilty using my Android cellphone. Apple's attitudes
related to patents is really starting to be a deal breaker to me.

I may be looking for notebooks alternatives next year. It is a bit sad because
I love the build quality from Apple's products, but I like to think that I
value my morals more than my consumism.

~~~
podperson
Well let's see: Google bought Motorola to use it as a patent hammer.

Microsoft has a long history of strategically settling lawsuits with patent
and IP trolls (remember SCO's lawsuit against Linux? Funded by Microsoft
paying them to license stuff that they could (a) easily have fought or (b)
paid far less for; similarly Burst's lawsuit against Apple over QuickTime was
funded by a Microsoft settlement).

~~~
juliano_q
I dont agree. Google refused to enter the patent war and was heavily bashed
for years. They bought Morotola to use the patents to defend their partners.
They are not using patents offensively, as far as I know.

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va_coder
It's trendy to knock TechCrunch down but you have to admit that's some good
journalism.

~~~
feralchimp
Couldn't agree more. I've never been a fan of TC, and am something of an Apple
fanboy, but they stepped in it here and I'm glad TC did the homework to call
them on it.

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akg
Reminds me of a company that I worked for in the past. They tried to sue me
for patent infringement long after I had left and started my own company. They
of course had no case, but it does cost significant resources for a small
startup to fight a multimillion dollar enterprise. All that wasted effort
could be better spent developing real products and actually providing value --
on both ends. Not sure why big companies are so afraid of the "little guy"
flying under the radar.

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teyc
If this is aimed at the big products like WP7 and Android, then Apple better
think it through carefully.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK famously said:

    
    
         any missile attack from Cuba would be
         considered an attack from Soviet Russia and
         bring "a full retaliatory response" from
         the United States against Russia itself.
    

Transferring your weapons to a third party and then saying you have no control
over what a third party does will be viewed dimly indeed.

------
SODaniel
The fact that Steve Jobs pioneered the '1984' style commercials that Futurama
so successfully parodied is a testament to the fact that you can indeed become
larger then your cult.

Apple today is one of the champions of collecting personal information,
defenders of monopoly on a scale that Microsoft can only dream of, and one of
the largest collectors of non-essential patents.

'I'm Loving It'

------
angli
I agree with some other commenters here that the correct response here is not
to blame Apple. Yes, it's fashionable to attack them these days, but it
honestly isn't their fault.

The rules of the game fundamentally change when you add software patents to
the mix. All it takes in this new world to ban a competitor's products is a
vague patent and a sympathetic judge. Apple, in fact, has now been on both
sides of this issue – suing Samsung's products out of the EU, and losing an
injunction to Motorola in Germany.

You can't blame Apple (or any of the other companies who may emerge) for
playing this game. If they can prevent their products from being pulled off
the shelves, it's stupid not to.

It's akin to (as many have noted) the problem of nuclear proliferation.
Blaming Apple is like blaming the US for not unilaterally disarming. Sure they
didn't, but it's understood that they had a good reason, and, out of self
interest, should have done _exactly_ what they did.

~~~
gvb
Blaming Apple for giving patents to patent trolls is like blaming Pakistan for
providing key information to help North Korea build nuclear weapons.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Korea_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Enriched_uranium_and_foreign_assistance)

------
petrichor
the implications of this article are potentially disturbing, but i can't even
muster the energy to get upset by these things anymore. i just have this
feeling that the bad guys one; it's over. (or maybe we're just in the empire
strikes back phase of things)

honestly, i think the most surprising thing about this article is that it was
written for techcrunch, and it contains actual journalism. how refreshing to
read something in the tech press that is not just linkbait aimed at activating
whichever legion of fanboys.

good work Jason Kincaid,

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ypcx
This is great, and exactly what we need. Through the patent war, massive
losses must be incurred on the richest corporations, until one (or more) of
them say "enough", and use their money to lobby the patent system into
oblivion.

~~~
OstiaAntica
Actually, this is a barrier to innovation and small, disruptive newcomers. The
richest corporations are using patents to lockup the marketplace and secure
the status quo.

~~~
ypcx
But this barrier can only fall if the titans make it fall. Probably makes
sense to expect that the titans will try to make it only fall for themselves,
but I don't think that would work. How that works exactly is what we see now.
Hopefully soon it will be cheaper for the titans to allow newcomer competition
than to continue this war. But then, maybe not!

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artursapek
How much progress has been made in reforming patent software laws so this kind
of shit stops happening?

~~~
div
Very little to none.

Software patent laws are largely written by people paid by companies who:

a) have a lot of patents

b) invested billions buying up patents

c) would very much like to see those patents as an asset which makes them
money

d) would very much like to see those patents as a weapon to stifle competitors

Extra patent laws that are introduced as bills are almost always laws that
make the current state of affairs worse.

~~~
artursapek
This country is so corrupt

------
chaostheory
Not sure if I understand it well enough but is this Apple's version of pulling
an SCO?

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joelmichael
In the patent wars, patent trolls will prove to be valuable allies.

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denzil_correa
It's no longer an Apple to Apple comparison after all. :-)

------
maeon3
How the heck do you BUY a patent and sell licenses to multiple third parties?
How does this maintain the spirit of patents where we encourage innovators?

Say I want to build a new phone in the shape of a rectangle, black, with
beveled edges? oops I have to purchase licenses from a gigantic enterprise
which has the patents on "rectangle", "black" and "beveled edges".

Well, maybe it's too much work to build a new piece of technology, I can't
make it work with all the fire hoops to jump through! Guess I'll get into
selling apples on the side of the road, that is until somebody patents that.

~~~
praptak
Selling actual apples is safe (for now) but you better not have "apples" in
your company name.

