

Microsoft Wins Trial on Google’s Patent Licensing Tactics - jmcintyre
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-05/microsoft-wins-trial-on-google-s-patent-licensing-tactics.html

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comex
FOSS Patents on this: [http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/09/jury-quickly-
reaches-verd...](http://www.fosspatents.com/2013/09/jury-quickly-reaches-
verdict-in-favor.html)

(Usual disclaimer: You can agree or disagree with him, but he provides a
useful factual context for the decision.)

~~~
magicalist
> he provides a useful factual context for the decision

Ugh, no he doesn't. The very first thing he states is wrong. A jury ruling
does not establish case law.

He really is just a self-aggrandizing pundit, and even if he wasn't terrible,
he'd still be a pundit. He's even gotten worse over time, as half of each of
his articles now is just pointing out how the weasel words he used to describe
upcoming cases in previous posts turned out to be totally true. Who on earth
cares that the damages turned out to be relatively small, but hey, _earlier_
he wrote that the monetary amount didn't matter?

Don't give him link juice. The OP Bloomberg article contains a large amount of
context for the case.

~~~
throwawaykf02
_> Who on earth cares that the damages turned out to be relatively small, but
hey, earlier he wrote that the monetary amount didn't matter?_

Well, actually he said the legal implications will matter more than the money,
so that's something reasonably vague that he can point to later on if
something fits that description and say, "see, I told you so."

Similarly he didn't say "this jury ruling will create case law". It's worded a
lot more indirectly than that.

All his articles are like that, with lots of little predictions hedged by
weasel words. As such, with all that hedging he ends up appearing to be right
frequently, and he never misses a chance to link to any previous posts where
"he had said so before".

But because he's careful to always hedge his bets, I find him to be more
accurate than most pundits out there, who make bold claims and are either
surprisingly correct or, more likely, end up eating claim chowder.

What annoys me more is the hard-on he has for Google -- the "Google
micromanaged" Motorola Mobility division? Really?

------
chatman
Do no evil. Google exploring borderline evil tactics.

~~~
praxulus
This lawsuit was based on events from a year before the Google acquisition.

I'm not saying Google is good or bad, but this isn't evidence of either.

~~~
throwawaykf02
Microsoft cast the first stone in October 2010, and made its FRAND allegations
in November 2010 [1]. Google announced its acquisition of Motorola in August
2011 [2] and completed it in May 2012 [3]. This decision comes more than a
year after the close.

Granted, regulatory concerns did not allow it to affect the lawsuit until the
acquisition closed (other than maybe the extreme measure of abandoning the
acquisition itself)... But a year is a long time -- and many, many settlement
opportunities -- to pursue a lawsuit to its bitter end, especially with all
the disapproving judgements they were getting [1]. I think "evil" is a stupid
term used too readily around these parts, but I also think a year is more than
enough time for Google to bear responsibility for this.

Essentially, Google decided to bear the negative publicity (if any) of being
convicted of pursuing unfair business practices rather than settle with
Microsoft.

Judgements of "evilness" aside, given that Google is pretty savvy about its
public perception, this probably has a few significant implications.

1\. [http://www.patentprogress.org/cases/microsoft-v-motorola-
inc...](http://www.patentprogress.org/cases/microsoft-v-motorola-inc-and-
motorola-mobility-inc-w-d-of-wa/)

2\.
[http://investor.google.com/releases/2011/0815.html](http://investor.google.com/releases/2011/0815.html)

3\.
[http://investor.google.com/releases/2012/0522.html](http://investor.google.com/releases/2012/0522.html)

------
enupten
All big companies are the same, little companies are evil in their own way.

------
brokenparser
Hopefully MSFT will buy the full version when the trial expires.

~~~
ethana
Ha! It's shareware like WinRAR. They could just click the x button.

------
ethana
Maybe the YouTube app fiasco was a preemptive strike.

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cremnob
I expect Google to write-down Motorola eventually. The patents seem pretty
worthless thus far.

[http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/26/4271432/does-anyone-
know-w...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/26/4271432/does-anyone-know-why-
google-bought-motorola)

------
bsullivan01
_Motorola Mobility didn’t act in good faith when it demanded patent royalties
from Microsoft Corp_

Duh! Nothing in these lawsuits is in good faith, all is done to screw the
other side. MS got lucky Motorola played it dumb and lost. Asking 2.25% of the
sale price just for a small portion of one feature takes b-lls. Being FRAND
patents and all, no one forced Motorola to add their patents to standards.

 _U.S. District Judge James Robart, who presided over the trial, determined in
April that the appropriate royalty rate was about a half-cent per unit for
video-decoding technology and 3 1 /2 cents for wireless technology. Microsoft
said that would equal about $1.8 million a year._

Is this legally binding, assuming it's held on appeal?

