Submitted by Considering the massive FUD-attack currently underway against Android vendors, this news doesn’t come as a particular surprise: Google has announced plans to acquire Nortel’s immense patent portfolio for defensive purposes. Google’s blog post on the matter couldn’t be more bitter and direct.
Google’s current bid for Nortel’s patent portfolio, which is being sold off as part of Nortel’s bankruptcy auction, amounts to USD 900 million. This is marked by Nortel as the ‘stalking-horse bid’, meaning it’s the starting point for everybody else with interest in this particular portfolio. The portfolio includes about 6000 patents and patent applications for wired, wireless, and digital communication technologies.
“The tech world has recently seen an explosion in patent litigation, often involving low-quality software patents, which threatens to stifle innovation,” writes Kent Walker, senior vice president & general counsel at Google, “Some of these lawsuits have been filed by people or companies that have never actually created anything; others are motivated by a desire to block competing products or profit from the success of a rival’s new technology.”
Google’s looking at you, Microsoft and Apple, with the latter. And rightfully so.
“The patent system should reward those who create the most useful innovations for society, not those who stake bogus claims or file dubious lawsuits,” Walker continues, “It’s for these reasons that Google has long argued in favor of real patent reform, which we believe will benefit users and the US economy as a whole.”
A patent reform bill has been stuck in the US Senate for a while, and in the meantime, the best a company can do to defend itself against the kind of competition-stiffling lawsuits from Apple and Microsoft or other forms of patent trolling is to build a formidable defensive patent portfolio of your own. Google is trying to do just that.
Other companies can also bid on the portfolio, so the deal isn’t done just yet – however, Google’s message is clear. “If successful, we hope this portfolio will not only create a disincentive for others to sue Google, but also help us, our partners and the open source community – which is integrally involved in projects like Android and Chrome – continue to innovate. In the absence of meaningful reform, we believe it’s the best long-term solution for Google, our users and our partners,” Walker concludes.
I hope they’re looking in the mirror too…
You’re right…Google Apologetics are reaching new heights (or is that lows?). Anyway…Google is becoming a putrid mix of self-righteousness and hypocrisy.
What do they need to look in the mirror for? Have they sued Apple? Apple is the one that is attacking Android through litigation. I don’t see Google using the courts to compete in the marketplace. I see Google competing with products. They don’t even bad-mouth their competitors like Apple and MS does. I don’t see then spreading FUD like Apple and MS does either. So what exactly is your point?
Funny how you believe Microsoft’s allegations vs. Google right away, but when similar allegations are made against Apple, you dismiss them outright.
It’s obvious to anyone with more than two braincells that Google is no better than any other company when it comes to these matters. The fact that you point it out every. Single. Time. In your self-righteous “oh look at poor Apple boo hoo”-tone speaks volumes.
About you.
Remind me, who did Google sue for patent infringement lately?
Google are a member of the Open Invention Network (OIN).
http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/licensees.php
This is how the OIN works with respect to patents:
http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/patents.php
“Open Invention Network^A(R) believes that one of the keys to innovation in the Linux community is the ability to share software code and ideas. Open Invention Network^A(R) acquires patents and makes them available royalty-free to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against the Linux System. This enables companies to make significant corporate and capital expenditure investments in Linux ^aEUR” helping to promote collaboration and fuel economic growth.”
http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/pat_license.php
Android is a Linux System. Google is an OIN licensee.
Therefore, if Google acquires the 6000 Nortel patents, then Google will automatically grant to other current and future OIN licensees all of Google’s patents and applications (including the 6000) for the Linux System.
If Apple and Microsoft want to be assured that they cannot be sued by Google for these patents, then all that Apple and Microsoft would have to do is themselves join the OIN. This can be done for the low, low cost of promising not to sue any other OIN members.
FrankenFuss:
I think you need to read and digest the spirit of the OIN cross-licensing agreements (reproduced above) before you sprout libellous rubbish like this.
Edited 2011-04-04 23:32 UTC
But first, I must insist you get a dictionary or law book and read up on the term “libel”.
That will be all.
Google is not a person … right? OK, so libel is not the correct word … but nevertheless you are still wrong.
So, anyway, back to the main point … can you offer a single good reason why Microsoft and Apple should NOT join the OIN and save everybody, including themselves and literally billions of consumers, an absolute fortune and a great deal of angst?
The whole economoy would benefit through a reduction of deadweight losses through litigation costs.
A) They are ready to block competitors’ innovation in the marketplace using said patents. Apple doesn’t even pretend it will not do it. Microsoft is a bit more secretive, but still a bunch of pricks.
B) Market dominance and high income are very much their goals. Joining OIN, even with IBM there, is not valuable enough to them.
Disagree … IBM has more patents than anybody, the pool includes all Novell, Phillips and Sony patents, and then there are the infamous web services patents (formerly owned by Commerce One, and which iTunes, App Stores, Bing, MSN, Microsoft Help, Microsoft Update and other web services almost certainly violate) now owned by OIN itself, and if Google are successful there will be another 6000 patents formerly owned by Nortel in the pool.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_and_free_software#Pat…
This is a huge amount of patent protection to gain all for the low, low cost of promising not to sue other OIN members. It is a hell of a lot cheaper than lawyers …
Edited 2011-04-05 01:14 UTC
Right on! Anyone who cannot see the logic behind this is either an idiot or an obvious troll. It’s a win-win situation for us consumers, so this action by Google is completely justified, legal and just common sense.
I would hope Google then will license the acquired patents to OIN. I haven’t read that they have said/promised anything about that. As far as I know, OIN members are not required to license all the patents they hold to the OIN pool…
Although the OIN organisation itself does buy some patents which then belong directly to the OIN patent pool, members of the OIN do not relinquish the patents they hold to the OIN pool.
Instead they simply grant a perpetual irrevocable royalty-free license to all other OIN members for their patents.
Like so:
http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/pat_license.php
In other words, all members have a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license to use all of the patents in the OIN pool itself and also to use all of the applicable patents held by any of the members.
If Google buys the 6000 Nortel patents, any of them applicable to Android would be related to “the Linux System”, and hence Google would automatically give all other OIN members a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license to use those patents in their products.
Since the licenses granted are perpetual, irrevocable and royalty-free, and since Novell is an OIN member, this arrangement also means that all OIN members already have a perpetual, irrevocable and royalty-free license to use all of Novell’s patents applicable to Linux. Therefore, even after Novell is sold, OIN members cannot be sued for any of Novell’s patents. They already have a license.
Edited 2011-04-05 09:35 UTC
I personally would prefer all forms of patents completely eradicated; no hardware patents, no software patents, no nothing. This would force companies to fight eachother for market share solely on basis of product and service quality. Obviously this would be the best thing for the possible buyers. However, I know such will not go through. Money makes the world go ’round, as they say, and suing over patents makes money go ’round.
So, if we were to still keep the concept of patents intact, what could be changed to make the system less broken? For one, limiting the duration of a patent to 5 years would be a good start; it would still give you a real edge compared to your competitors by giving you full 5 years of time for setting up supply chains, possible stores or such and so on whereas your competitors would have to start from zero when the time is up. Also, a 5-year long patent would force you to actually do something with it, not just sit on it for years to come. Secondly, only real innovations should be patentable. Not things like e.g. Apple’s patent for white colour on iPhone. It’s not an innovation, it’s a f*cking patent on colouring your iPhone white.
Defining what that “real innovation” is would take quite a lot of effort, but really, there is no way of making the patents system less broken without actually putting in a lot of effort anyway.
Abolishing the system entirely is not desirable – like copyright, the patent system has been hijacked by big companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google, who are using the system to block other, (smaller) companies and/or individuals from entering their respective markets. In other words, the patent system needs to be changed so that it is, again, about protecting individuals and inventors from corporations blocking them and stealing their ideas.
– depending on your market, a patent length of 5-7 years should be more than enough. For instance, in the medical field, a type of drug can often be published about way before it enters the market due to extensive testing, testing that lasts a lot longer than with other products. Consequently, it might be beneficial to have a longer patent term in the medical field.
– terms cannot be extended. If you fail to bring your product to market, patent expires forever. Someone else can have a go at it.
– patents MUST be tied to the inventor(s). They cannot be sold or transferred to someone else. They cannot be owned by a company. Even if done in the boss’ time, a patent should be tied to the original inventors. This prevents patent hoarding and patent trolling.
– ALL patent applications must be accompanied by a working prototype that can be demonstrated, in working condition, to the patent office. This prevents individuals from throwing random, untested concepts to see what sticks. If you invent something, it better not be “in theory”. Working prototype, or no dice.
– software is already protected by copyright. Hence, software should not be patentable.
– governments can democratically decide to nullify certain patents if it benefits the greater good, for example patents on a drug or water treatment technique that could save lives if produced by 3rd parties in greater quantities.
I probably missed a few things.
I disagree that scrapping patents altogether is necessarily a Bad Thing. In an ideal world I’d be with WereCatF on that one, especially if I would need a working prototype in your scenario to secure my patent in the first place – I’d rather manufacturer competed on cost and technical merit alone
I can’t remember name of the actual government advisor offhand but I was reliable informed by an IP specialist recently that at one time (probably not so long after the Wright Brother patent on powered flight) the US government was advised that the economy would benefit most from having no patent system at all but that with one already in place it would be more problematic to remove it!
I agree with you entirely on software patents, the existence of copyright alone should be more than enough! and therefore they should be unpatentable.
Pharmaceutical R&D is a tricky one – it’s the industry I work in so I have a vested interest. Of course I’m aware of both the huge costs involved and the time to bring new therapeutics to market (if indeed they make it that far) BUT like a lot of scientists (oftentimes even more so than medics) we’re in it predominantly to help people and for the challenge rather than the money. and the financial funding that needs to be secured and the whole patent system and IP issues are thought of as a ‘necessary evil’ (given the current system). I truly believe that healthcare research and the provision of medicines generally is the one industry where patent systems have no useful function. The costs are too high, the risks of failure too high, therefore the financial rewards necessarily need to be too big (leading to a polarization of research by a lot of the big pharmas into treatments for chronic or currently untreatable[/un-‘curable’] conditions – obesity, depression, autoimmune conditions, and especially cancer). Most crucially of all the importance is too high! -it’s all our healths, it’s our families, and our lives!
Therefore my personal stance (and I don’t believe I’m alone): The current role of the big pharmas ought to be wholesale taken over by government funded research institutions, or new trans-national organisations and co-operatives that provide operational funding to some of the more fruitful young biotech companies with a new focus on reward for results not simply growing IP portfolios only in the hope of a payday big buyout.
P.S There really ought be a rule that any taxpayer funded (even part funded) research should have to been published somewhere it can be freely accessed by taxpayers across the globe, not behind a publishers paywall(!) ..after all e-distribution verges on the free these days and the real work is done gratis by the professional peer reviewers.
Lastly – and I add this purely because I’ve had what I believe to be a great mechanical invention in my head for years – but it’s technically difficult for me a non-engineer to realise: RE working prototypes – hear what you’re saying, & mostly makes sense – but maybe allow a middle ground where a computer simulation of the model might be allowed??
Edited 2011-04-04 22:41 UTC
[quote]the economy would benefit most from having no patent system[/quote]
So? All economies would benefit from removing all and any IP, but it does not make it right or empower progress. Economy can also be stimulated by disasters and war, that does not make it right…
..like I said, I can’t remember the name of the bugger I was paraphrasing there, it wasn’t me.
While part of me (call in the anarchist part i dunno) hates the idea of the existance of patents full stop simply because they are the imposition of a legal block called into existance by ‘others’, not on progress but on action, on creation, they’re anti-freedom in a sense. but I accept your implied point that capitalist forces, the clout of large business vs small will have they’re own larger anti-competitive impact and will stymie progress if not checked by regulatory devices like patents.
I just think they’re only of benefit(i.e. encourage progress via further invention) to certain ‘industries’ or certain types of product.
Those being largely if not exclusively
* novel mechanical devices / processes
* novel physical goods that have possess a ‘new function’.
while they might benefit the companies involved in -as i mentioned before- the new-drug development process, patents ultimately don’t encourage wide progress for mankind in this arena (we really don’t get nearly the wide variety of new therapeutics targetting all sorts of conditions that we might if the whole endeavour was differently funded/incentivised). That plus a concomitant overhaul of the modern trial requirements [well trained physicians ought to be able to prescribe any substance with mere non- or low-toxicity data available : might allowed efficacy ‘trialling’ to occuring far more organically than today]….
Apologies for going way off topic! rant over for today
It’s a balancing act between “incentive for progress and innovation” vs “economic growth”.
China for example has only one rational option – economic growth. So it is not in their interest to honour IP, because that will impede their economic growth. US and EU are developed enough to have two choices.
This would be an argument if software patents did actually encourage innovation and stimulate the economy, but they don’t. Software patents are being used exclusively by companies to sue one another over trivial things in an effort to prvent competition. Preventing competition is the exact opposite of enabling innovation. The worst aspect is that this whole exercise of preventing competition and halting innovation is a tremendous drain on the economy, and it is the precise OPPOSITE of the aims that patents are supposed to achieve.
If the US government won’t act and ban all software patents, the ONLY solution I can see is for all software companies to pool together all their patents into one pool, make them all roaylty-free to all parties who have contributed anything to the pool, and have everybody license everybody else for all the patents in the pool.
No lawsuits, and everybody within the common patent pool is protected from everybody else inside the pool, and has a massive array of patents to protect against everybody outside the pool.
With such a softare patent network, the companies themselves can effectively eliminate software patents, and in the process save themselves and consumers massive amounts of money and overhead costs. Everybody wins, except the lawyers. So why not?
That would exclude all smaller companies who have no patents to provide to the pool. Ie. it would be even easier than it already is to squash smaller competitors.
Thus your “solution” would be worse than what is already established.
Fair enough. I was actually thinking of course of the OIN patent pool … and it turns out that organisations can join that pool even if they have no patents of their own.
http://www.openinventionnetwork.com/licensees.php
This particular patent pool does not exclude all smaller companies who have no patents to provide to the pool. All that the smaller organisations are asked to provide is a proportionate contribution to help purchase patents (such as the Commerce One web services patents) that the pool itself now owns.
Good enough?
Some else’s worthwhile thoughts on this topic are posted here:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news/2011/04/ammo-for-oracle-fight-g…
Uncle Thom meet kettle, kettle meet Uncle Thom.
Some of your “suggestions” aren’t bad, though you have some short sightedness to a few.
Allowing variable lengths can/will lead to gray areas, better to have the same amount of time apply to all patents.
I think this is a good idea also. See the response above. So with all patents having the same amount of time, they should all expire without extension when that time expires.
What would be the incentive to fund (wether it is via employment, grants, etc..) a person to research if you could not get a ROI?
Sure Einstein started his work while working as a patent clerk, and Apple started in a garage, but thats not always the case, some of our greatest achievements are from people being funded which allowed them to focus on their research.
I agree with this partially, the wording should probably be a bit clearer. Instead of “accompany” the patent application the prototype should be made available to a patent clerk prior to being awarded. Somethings maybe to large to send to the patent office, but I agree with the working prototype as to just theory.
This is another gray area. What is the difference really between a chemical formula and a block of code? Both are the blueprint on how the final product is created. A material is patentable as well as the process in which to create it, I see no real difference with software.
Gray area again. This can easily be abused, somethings would be clear cut, others not so much. Besides where would be the incentive? If you can have your IP taken from you without compensation. A good example would be the movie “Flash of Genius” the intermittent wind shield wiper, it was the best way to do a wiper and therefore the safest application of one, so should the inventor not be entitled to compensation?
After some further thought, a counter point would be, books.
The language in which it was written in, is not patented nor is the final product itself (the book) but rather copyrighted.
Yet software is neither a book or a chemical compound.
However I do agree with the fact that the patent system does need to be updated and reformed, as times have changed.
Abstract,
“This is another gray area. What is the difference really between a chemical formula and a block of code? Both are the blueprint on how the final product is created. A material is patentable as well as the process in which to create it, I see no real difference with software.”
You are mistaken, it’s not grey at all. Copyright inhibits copying, and protects people’s works including software from trivial mass copying.
Patents grant ownership of an idea to a single patent holder. In the software field, it is a virtual guarantee that between the millions of developers, some will invent (although “derive” is sometimes more accurate) the same algorithm completely independently. Why should one developer be granted a monopoly for his work at the expense of all other developers? Why don’t they deserve to profit from their own work? The patent system prevent us from selling and even using our own work which is considered original in terms of copyright. In all likelihood, the patent holder is probably not even the original inventor.
Code to programmers is like words to writers, why should patents hold us back from expressing our own ideas? How terrible would it be if ideas in literature were patented?
Those who believe in patents on software need to take a serious look at how impractical it is to use the information publicly disclosed in patent applications. They are written by lawyers for lawyers. I’ve never seen any programmers who were stumped on a coding problem and get help from USPTO patent filings. So where is the public benefit?
Say what you will about patents in other disciplines, but at least for software, they make no sense.
Please don’t bash design patents for no reason. Design patents are there to fight counterfeit goods and “indirect trademark infringement”. They are by the way very much legal and enforced in Finland as they are in US.
By the way designs are not covered by copyrights.
I disagree with that notion. Looks of something should not be patentable unless it is vital for the functionality of the said product, ie. a very specific shape that e.g. maximizes airflow or something. Coloring or the shape that is only there to make it look appealing are not vital aspects of the product and should have absolutely no place in anyone’s patents portfolio.
They aren’t even like regular patents. They are exclusively there to protect a unique visual presentation. And they are explicitly non-functional. Only one reason they exist – fight counterfeit goods.
I’m sure that when you see a laptop that looks exactly like {your favorite brand} you want to be sure that it is. Those patents prevent mobile phones like Nokla being sold as Nokia. Think of them as a trademark on the appearance… not word or shape.
You don’t need patents for that. Trademark and copyright laws already prevent such a case.
They do when you actually NAME your product in that way. But trademark law does not prevent Hartwall releasing a drink the colour of Coca Cola with the label using the same colour palette and patented bottle design. And that is as much a violation of brand recognition as the words Coca-Cola or Coke.
Google is one of several bidders, including Apple.
Will you whine for an all out war against Apple upon their outbidding the smaller Google?
It’s a bit more about the reason why Google is doing it. And “everyone” knows Thoms stance on software patents.
Too much in the patent system is related to concepts and not actual inventions. I would suggest preventing a patent lawsuit if the litigator has no actual product based on the patent, and patents expiring after 5 years if there is no marketed product by this time.
Software is all about algorithms and logic, most of it mathematically derivable. It doesn’t make any sense to grant monopolies on it. Software patents should have never come into existence in the first place.
People who say all the time “oh project X doesn’t infringe on any patents”, are somewhat naive about the pervasiveness of software patents in the US. It’s practically impossible to write any serious piece of software without actually infringing patents.
What is infuriating is that it’s become trivial to inadvertently infringe patents without having known about them. What is the alleged “public benefit” of 17 year monopoly on an idea of an algorithm if a developer like me can come up with it independently as a routine part of my work?
consider the following. Support you believe disarmament is a way to go and so you preach. Yet somehow all your neighbors ignore your preaching and even worse, every one of them got a pile of bricks and they throw those bricks into you, just for the fun of it. Will you continue preaching or rather get your own pile or bricks and tell them: if you do it again, guess what’s going to happen?
The choice is yours.
Thom, if you’re going to post this kind of opinion-driven commentary, let’s not pretend that it’s “news”.
There are two sides to this story, and the opposing side says that Android vendors are trampling on their patented inventions. Until that issue is resolved by the courts, it’s hardly a “massive FUD-attack”.
Oh, its a massive FUD attack all right, no doubt about it really. Did you happen to read what the patents at issue are supposed to be about? That alone tells you this is all about FUD, and has nothing whatsoever to do with anyone “trampling on anyone’s patented inventions”.