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Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy Against Android (Groklaw)
Barnes & Noble has started speaking out about its experience with the
patent system in a big way; Groklaw has the full set
of documents. "Instead of focusing on innovation and the
development of new products for consumers, Microsoft has decided to invest
its efforts into driving open source developers from the mobile operating
systems market. Through the use of offensive licensing agreements and the
demand for unreasonable licensing fees, Microsoft is hindering creativity
in the mobile operating systems market."
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Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 14, 2011 16:53 UTC (Mon) by Zizzle (guest, #67739) [Link]
So MS is playing dirty, no big surprise.
I'd love to see them forced to stop this sort of behavior.
But have they done anything illegal? Seems to be pretty much exactly what the patent system is currently designed for.
I don't think you could say that they are using their desktop monopoly to extend into the mobile space.
They are just using patents as intended.
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 14, 2011 17:01 UTC (Mon) by marduk (subscriber, #3831) [Link]
Policymakers are currently in a "do not over regulate/oversee" mode when it comes to businesses these days. Being the nature of the economy and these businesses are needed for creating all these jobs... at least jobs for lawyers.
So I don't expect anything will happen soon.
Regulation Posted Nov 14, 2011 17:12 UTC (Mon) by oldtomas (guest, #72579) [Link]
I know what you mean. Neevertheless, the ironic part is, *patents are regulation.*
I'm not at all against any regulation; in this case I'd love to see more deregulation...
I'd tend to reformulate your second paragraph as "Policymakers are currently in a 'do whatever the big corps & banks tell us to do'".
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 14, 2011 17:10 UTC (Mon) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
There are some people who still have the romantic notion that "what the patent system is currently designed for" is to reward the "hardworking inventor". Some of those people probably have a say over things like the scope of the patent system. And the patent system is not some carved-in-stone foundation of society - it's a framework for handing out government-sponsored concessions - so it can go away or be substantially reduced without offending the morals of the man in the street, and more easily than the more fundamental laws that govern society, too.
So as soon as those people discover what patents have led to, the greater the hope will be that they'll restrict the scope of the system substantially.
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 14, 2011 17:20 UTC (Mon) by fest3er (guest, #60379) [Link]
Illegal? Probably not. Sociopathic? Possibly.
It seems that B&N's lawyers are smarter than those of the other companies that have kow-towed to MS.
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 14, 2011 18:51 UTC (Mon) by leoc (subscriber, #39773) [Link] Or is could be that they have less to lose by fighting. Don't most of the other companies (HTC, Samsung, etc) sell products that use Windows?
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 14, 2011 18:19 UTC (Mon) by fluxion (subscriber, #62978) [Link]
B&N seems to have a legally-viable strategy. In a slide deck they released publically a while back they cited a DOJ ruling against Microsoft that specifically stated that even viable, legal patents do not grant a corporation the right to engage in anti-competitive practices. The validity/scope of the patents being used, and nature of the licensing deals, are all factors in determining whether Microsoft is violating that very same ruling in the mobile operating systems market.
From a high-level perspective it seems pretty obvious that Microsoft is guilty of this and thus violating the law, but building a case that holds up will still be a difficult task.
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 15, 2011 1:48 UTC (Tue) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link]
A patent is practically by definition an "anti-competitive practice". A legal one.
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 15, 2011 3:52 UTC (Tue) by jjs (guest, #10315) [Link]
They're referring to monopoly use of power. MS, as a monopoly in the PC world, cannot use patents as a part of using their PC monopoly to extend into the phone/tablet world.
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 15, 2011 8:21 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
Patent establish monopolies over specific concepts/ideas/algorithms*.
It is hard to argue that Microsoft is not allowed to use a monopoly that the Constitution dictates that it is the right of the Congress to award.
It would like the government saying that it is legal to drive 75 MPH, but if you are caught driving 35-65MPH you will get a ticket for speeding.
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 15, 2011 11:52 UTC (Tue) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link] It is hard to argue that Microsoft is not allowed to use a monopoly that the Constitution dictates that it is the right of the Congress to award. To choose a better analogy than the one you gave, it would be like the government permitting the mayor of each town to grant monopolies on certain trades if it stimulates settlement in those towns, only to find that the mayor's best friends now run all the businesses in a particular town and won't let anyone else run a viable competing business. You can argue that his friends are only exercising their "right", but I'm pretty sure that a visiting congressman would see the disconnect between what was intended and what has actually happened.
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 15, 2011 14:20 UTC (Tue) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> only to find that the mayor's best friends now run all the businesses in a particular town and won't let anyone else run a viable competing business.
Ha. That's not fantasy, that's reality. That is the way most towns/cities are going to work.
> You can argue that his friends are only exercising their "right", but I'm pretty sure that a visiting congressman would see the disconnect between what was intended and what has actually happened.
The only reason a congressman would care is if it was their buddies the ones that got hurt by the major's behavior.
What you describe is simply how this country is run. Republicans and Democrats fight not because of idealogical reasons, but because they have a different set of corporate backers and banking interests that compete for special privileges from the government.
Whether or not Microsoft gets sued or a injunction against them depends on who they are friends with and who Barnes and Nobles is in bed with. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of regulations involved in how these businesses operate. Many of them are conflicting, which means following one law means breaking another. How and when the laws get applied and which ones that are chosen to be enforced are reflecting business's political alignment, the result of things like public opinion poles, and individual governmental official's aspirations.
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 15, 2011 18:06 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]
That's essentially the definition of corruption. It seems to me that a lot of corruption is now tolerated as "just the way things are".
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 15, 2011 20:39 UTC (Tue) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
In the US it is not illegal to be a Monopoly. Becoming a Monopoly doesn't necessarily mean that you did something bad, it could be that you are just so much better than your competition that you drove them out of business (or at least into such a fringe that they don't matter, Monopoly status != 100% of the market)
It is however illegal to abuse the Monopoly status, and B&N is arguing that Microsoft is doing exactly this.
Specifically, it is abuse of a Monopoly to use the Monopoly status in one area to try and control another area.
Microsoft was convicted of abusing their Monopoly status in Desktop Operating Systems to try and control Browsers (among others)
In this case you see them using a Legal Monopoly (a software Patent on a feature) to control different things like allowable hardware specs. This is clearly using a Monopoly in one area to try and control another area, and this is supposed to be Illegal, and that is what B&N is pointing out.
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 16, 2011 7:23 UTC (Wed) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link]
A patent is a legal monopoly, to be sure, a legal monopoly established by force of law. Patents are government decrees authored by outside parties that couldn't be better designed to destroy competition in certain fields.
That is what patent attorneys are for - their job is to destroy competition. A patent that doesn't destroy competition because it is too specific is an unmitigated failure. The idea isn't to protect inventions, it is to rob the public by extracting monopoly rents over entire fields of endeavor. A patent attorney that doesn't help his clients rob the public in every possible way that the patent office will tolerate has violated his fiduciary duty.
His or her *duty* is to devise the worst, most all encompassing government monopolies possible. The duty of the patent office is to grant them, it is the sworn duty of every patent officer to help companies destroy competition by authorizing any monopoly claim allowed under the law. That is why they are there.
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 15, 2011 11:28 UTC (Tue) by zoom91664 (guest, #81385) [Link] There are pertinent slides presented by Barnes & Noble's lawyers to the Justice Department, which include a list of patents covering the super complicated and non-trivial "inventions". This includes beauties such as "placing a loading status icon in the content viewing area of a browser".
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 14, 2011 19:49 UTC (Mon) by dwmw2 (subscriber, #2063) [Link]
If they have made a misrepresentation for financial gain, they have committed the criminal offence of fraud.
That includes making a claim that something is novel and innovative when in fact it is not. Or claiming that it wouldn't be obvious to an expert in the field.
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 14, 2011 23:06 UTC (Mon) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
They are (ab)using their patents to stop potential competitors from using NON-patented technology.
Did you read that bit about the MS *software* patent licence giving MS the right to dictate *hardware* requirements? It's strongly suspected that the reason the Amazon Fire has only 8 *non*extendable* gigs of memory is because - as part of MS's Android licence - Amazon is not allowed to include an SD-card expansion slot ,..
Now if that's not abuse of monopoly ...
Cheers,
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 15, 2011 13:55 UTC (Tue) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]
I'm pretty sure releasing "Windows Phone"s will have been part of the deals made with HTC and Samsung.
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy Against Android (Groklaw) Posted Nov 14, 2011 17:10 UTC (Mon) by linuxjacques (subscriber, #45768) [Link]
Thank you B&N!
Finally a company has had the guts to disclose the patents in question.
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 14, 2011 17:29 UTC (Mon) by clugstj (subscriber, #4020) [Link]
Wow, SCOG tactics to the letter. Why didn't they use a front company this time?
I will buy at least one tablet for chritsmas Posted Nov 14, 2011 18:12 UTC (Mon) by amtota (guest, #4012) [Link]
Now I know which one to get.
Thanks B&N!
I will buy at least one tablet for chritsmas Posted Nov 14, 2011 18:28 UTC (Mon) by tdwebste (guest, #18154) [Link]
I see an early christmas present, a B&N tablet
So The Same Groklaw That Had No Problem With IBM's Assertion Of Patents Against TurboHercules ... Posted Nov 15, 2011 18:42 UTC (Tue) by ldo (subscriber, #40946) [Link]
... is coming over all tut-tut against naughty Microsoft for wanting to do the same agains Barnes & Noble.
Consistency, they have heard of it!
So The Same Groklaw That Had No Problem With IBM's Assertion Of Patents Against TurboHercules ... Posted Nov 15, 2011 21:04 UTC (Tue) by stumbles (guest, #8796) [Link] Oh please stop the fudding. Show a document that IBM was the instigator; it was Turbo asking IBM what patents they (Turbo) might be infringing and IBM merly listed the ones they thought applied. Even if I am wrong on that point, I would consider PJs assessment way more accurate than yours; http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=2010041107355659 The simple fact is this: TurboHerucles is not without clean hands.
So The Same Groklaw That Had No Problem With IBM's Assertion Of Patents Against TurboHercules ... Posted Nov 16, 2011 11:00 UTC (Wed) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]
The simple fact is that IBM had been turning a blind eye to their customers making illegal copies of Z-OS etc to run on Hercules emulators. When TurboHercules tried to buy legal copies IBM said "go away, we don't want to do business".
At which point, TH started fudding like mad saying "IBM are trying to put us out of business!". Well, if you *found* your *entire* business on illegal copying, you're getting away damn lightly if the victim merely says "shove off and leave me alone".
Cheers,
So The Same Groklaw That Had No Problem With IBM's Assertion Of Patents Against TurboHercules ... Posted Nov 16, 2011 11:49 UTC (Wed) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
At least a few countries have competition laws that prohibit artificial "bundling" - tying the purchase of one product to another - where doing so would be anti-competitive. That is, it is just as possible that IBM were unjustified in refusing to sell zOS without a mainframe. I don't know who is right, but TH do at least have some kind of case to be heard, and it's not as simple as you paint it.
A short and unhappy day in court Posted Nov 16, 2011 13:19 UTC (Wed) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
The funny thing is that when the whole issue of bundling was brought up, and I noted that the biggest bundler of them all is Microsoft, a certain central figure in the whole TurboHercules squabble claimed that no bundling or tying of any kind goes on in the personal computer space, or at least that Microsoft with its behind-the-scenes manipulation of vendors and finger-pointing licence refund antics has no case to answer.
It would really cost the advocates for mainframe licence unbundling nothing to have a degree of consistency and acknowledge more blatant cases of bundling - it would probably even soften up the resistance to their claims - but I guess the elbows are out and they have to have their day in court first.
So The Same Groklaw That Had No Problem With IBM's Assertion Of Patents Against TurboHercules ... Posted Nov 16, 2011 15:10 UTC (Wed) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
>At which point, TH started fudding like mad saying "IBM are trying to put us out of business!". Well, if you *found* your *entire* business on illegal copying, you're getting away damn lightly if the victim merely says "shove off and leave me alone".
Did IBM pay you to spread this muck? TH absolutely *did not* found their entire business on illegal copying, and to claim so is libellous, not to mention reprehensible.
Painting IBM as the 'victim' is gobsmackingly dishonest; you should be ashamed.
If the majority of people had your viewpoint, there *never would have been* a PC clone industry and the world would be quite different.
*plonk*
So The Same Groklaw That Had No Problem With IBM's Assertion Of Patents Against TurboHercules ... Posted Nov 16, 2011 15:11 UTC (Wed) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]
Damn. The killfile doesn't work since I let my subscription lapse :(
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy AgainstAndroid (Groklaw) Posted Nov 19, 2011 10:40 UTC (Sat) by ssam (subscriber, #46587) [Link]
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