Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung [LWN.net]

The mobile patent thicket grows thicker: a company called Gemalto has announced the filing of a lawsuit against Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung, claiming that Android violates its patents 6,308,317, 7,117,485, and 7,818,727. The latter two were just issued in October; all seem to cover the revolutionary concept of running an interpreted language on a microcontroller.

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Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 16:37 UTC (Tue) by Baylink (guest, #755) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, given the general technical usage of technical terms, I think the defendents are safe; the CPUs in those phones are about 7 orders of magnitude more powerful than a "microcontroller", a term generally used to describe Arduino-class hardware...

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 27, 2010 10:10 UTC (Wed) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

Freescale classifies its MPC5xx/5xxx series of parts (e200 cores at speeds from 50 to 264 MHz) as microcontrollers.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 16:52 UTC (Tue) by lacostej (guest, #2760) [Link]

I don't get it. All patents seem to point to the Java class file format. Android isn't using that file format. Aren't the claims unrelated ?

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 17:13 UTC (Tue) by SEJeff (guest, #51588) [Link] (9 responses)

At what point will google either have to indemnify major Android distributors (HTC, Samsung, Motorola, Dell, etc), or have everyone drop Android. What is the next big thing, WebOS?

This Android patent tempest in a teacup is growing almost as fast as the platform its self.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 17:23 UTC (Tue) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link]

I would expect that WebOS etc would all be patent targets from the same companies. The patents are getting so silly that it is impossible to invent anything without it being already been 'invented' in some way by someone else.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 17:27 UTC (Tue) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (4 responses)

The better question is why is everyone so suddenly after android? We have so many suits being launched in near synchronization that I'm going to play the conspiracy theory and say this is being orchestrated by someone.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 17:35 UTC (Tue) by ewan (guest, #5533) [Link]

Could just be bandwagon jumping.

the conflict

Posted Oct 26, 2010 17:39 UTC (Tue) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] (1 responses)

The conflict here is between carriers and IT companies over who gets to be the branded platform and who has to be generic. Will the mobile device market be more like the cell phone/service market or the PC/ISP market? Google is the only IT company to side with the carriers.

Posted Oct 27, 2010 20:34 UTC (Wed) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link]

Related story showing where the lines are forming: Apple is believed to be working with SIM-card manufacturer Gemalto to develop a SIM card built into the iPhone, making it easy for phone owners to use a carrier of their choice. (One side wants to squeeze the profit out of the service to make more profit on the platform, and the other side wants to squeeze the profit out of the platform to make more money on the service.)

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 23:30 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]

> The better question is why is everyone so suddenly after android?

Money.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 27, 2010 0:03 UTC (Wed) by stumbles (guest, #8796) [Link]

At what point will google either have to indemnify ... or have everyone drop Android

Now you are starting to grasp the real reason for these lawsuits.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 27, 2010 20:40 UTC (Wed) by daniel (guest, #3181) [Link] (1 responses)

Nice troll, Jeff

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 27, 2010 20:45 UTC (Wed) by daniel (guest, #3181) [Link]

...and considering myself well trolled, I will suggest that this series of patent based attacks on Google is that best thing that could possibly have happened for the anti patent movement. Better the victim should be a wealthy company loaded with badass lawyers with a very poor record of losing, than me.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 17:25 UTC (Tue) by Topaz (guest, #60130) [Link] (5 responses)

...all seem to cover the revolutionary concept of running an interpreted language on a microcontroller. - Quotes around "revolutionary" to clearly indicate the sarcasm would be appropriate here.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 18:04 UTC (Tue) by tdwebste (guest, #18154) [Link] (4 responses)

Somewhere the patent process seams to have lost connection with its economic purpose of encouraging innovation.

My understanding is patents were conceived to encourage sharing in inventions rather than keeping them as trade secrets. The assumption is that collaboration and information sharing increase the pace of innovation.

The problem is patents in highly collaborative fields with low economic barriers to entry, patents hinder collaboration.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1411328

Does the patent process encourage inventors to turn their ideas into products? If it does not the patent process fails to fulfill its economic purpose.

I had no idea that double quotes " met sarcasm.
Perhaps the author was writing to a mature audience.

History of patents is long and convoluted

Posted Oct 26, 2010 19:05 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] (1 responses)

My understanding is patents were conceived to encourage sharing in inventions rather than keeping them as trade secrets. The assumption is that collaboration and information sharing increase the pace of innovation.

Please read at least Wikipedia article. While patents have longs history modern patent law started with Statute of Monopolies. The law which was designed not to establish patents (they existed before and stifled innovation quite effectively) but to reduce power of patents (after that point king only had right to grant patent for limited number of years - before it was not uncommon to have a patent for simple process like salt production for centuries).

Stop here and think again: Industrial revolution started when patents were trimmed and greatly reduced! What does it say about power of excessive patents?

The fact that patents are used to curb innovation, not to promote it is long history. Read this story, for example.

You can read this book if you want more.

History of patents is long and convoluted

Posted Oct 26, 2010 23:38 UTC (Tue) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link]

Excellent post! A quote from the Wikipedia article:

> The statute repealed all past and future patents and monopolies, except those created in the future over completely novel inventions.

I reckon modern governments should do exactly the same. Right now. And they should reduce the power of all of current monopolies substantially, primarily by reduced duration and by exclusion of most fields from patentable subject matter.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 19:17 UTC (Tue) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

Nobody involved in the decision making cares that patents don't achieve their stated purpose. If governments cared about that they could have read economics papers from years back.

Patents create artificial scarcity, which makes existing power and money more valuable. If you have wealth and power that's a good reason to never take a look at whether the patent laws are necessary. Better (to this way of thinking) to live in a world where you can afford someone to empty your chamber pot, while others live in disease and filth, than to live in a world where everybody lives in sanitary conditions and you're nothing special.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 27, 2010 14:41 UTC (Wed) by Topaz (guest, #60130) [Link]

I'm sure most regular LWN readers understand the meaning is the opposite of what was actually stated. But on the interwebs it's a good idea to use some indication of sarcasm, *stars*, quotes, a winky, something, because in plain text the normal cues indicating tone aren't there. And looky, a few comments down it seems that subscriber cesarb took the comment literally.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 17:43 UTC (Tue) by mrfredsmoothie (guest, #3100) [Link] (7 responses)

Despite the editor's sarcastic gloss, at least patent # 6,308,317 appears to actually cover altering Java application bytecode to run in more memory-constrained environments.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 18:54 UTC (Tue) by lacostej (guest, #2760) [Link] (6 responses)

what does Java bytecode has to do with android ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalvik_(software)

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 19:08 UTC (Tue) by mrfredsmoothie (guest, #3100) [Link] (4 responses)

From the Wikipedia article you yourself linked to:

A tool called dx is used to convert some (but not all) Java .class files into the .dex format.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 19:38 UTC (Tue) by lacostej (guest, #2760) [Link] (3 responses)

The description by Wikipedia is (to my understanding) leading to potential incorrect conclusion. There are no .class files deployed onto the phone. All is dex files.

http://sites.google.com/site/io/dalvik-vm-internals/2008-...

I am not a patent expert. But .class files are when it comes to android a temporary source format, almost as much as .java files are.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 20:10 UTC (Tue) by mrfredsmoothie (guest, #3100) [Link]

...and that is what the patent appears to cover.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 27, 2010 4:26 UTC (Wed) by Lefty (guest, #51528) [Link] (1 responses)

Er, I am a "patent expert", and yes, that does seem to be what this patent covers.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 27, 2010 5:50 UTC (Wed) by lacostej (guest, #2760) [Link]

Ok. That patent indeed seems a bit more on target. To me that one seems about and ICC talking to a terminal and that doesn't necessarily matches a microprocessor in a phone.

And I also wonder if the kind of optimizations applied to the class file format didn't exist before in other environments. But that's another question...

Thanks for your time both of you.

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 19:16 UTC (Tue) by ibukanov (subscriber, #3942) [Link]

The development tools first compile Java into the bytecode and then transforms the latter into the Dalvik format. I guess Gemalto hopes to convince the court that this is the altering that their patent covers...

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 19:37 UTC (Tue) by cesarb (subscriber, #6266) [Link] (5 responses)

> all seem to cover the revolutionary concept of running an interpreted language on a microcontroller.

I think that is probably not the case, because the spaceships which took humans to the moon decades ago already used that technique (see for instance http://www.ibiblio.org/apollo/assembly_language_manual.ht...).

Interpreter reduces code size

Posted Oct 27, 2010 10:56 UTC (Wed) by vonbrand (guest, #4458) [Link] (4 responses)

I seem to remember seeing the technique of an interpreter to reduce code size described in "The Mythical Man-Month" as something in rather common use back then... it definitely is described in Jon Bentley's "Programming Pearls" (in turn a compilation of his ACM Communication column in the '80s).

Interpreter reduces code size

Posted Oct 27, 2010 12:10 UTC (Wed) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935) [Link]

Interpreter reduces code size

Posted Oct 27, 2010 13:34 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

Take a look at TILs like Forth (Threaded Interpreted Language).

It's widely reported that a good Forth programmer could actually write programs smaller than a good assembly programmer.

Cheers,
Wol

Interpreter reduces code size

Posted Oct 27, 2010 20:52 UTC (Wed) by anselm (subscriber, #2796) [Link] (1 responses)

I seem to remember Donald E. Knuth talking about something along these lines in »The Art of Computer Programming«. Unfortunately the books are sitting in a box in storage right now so I can't check. Anyway, how a patent can be granted on that sort of technique in 2010 escapes me completely. The patent clerk ought to be fired for sheer stupidity.

Interpreter reduces code size

Posted Oct 31, 2010 7:08 UTC (Sun) by steffen780 (guest, #68142) [Link]

The clerk was merely following orders, and whilst he should certainly be fired the real enemy are the people who give these orders, all the way up to the presidents. With the patent situation as it stands it is effectively illegal to write any program, the maximum punishment being bankruptcy and/or destitution (the fact that not everyone is persecuted doesn't change the fact that everyone could be persecuted). This is an obvious breach of a number of fundamental human rights (free speech, economic freedom, freedom to learn&teach, etc.), and the people who protect these anti-constitutional laws should be treated accordingly. It's such a shame we don't live in "should-land"...

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 20:08 UTC (Tue) by butlerm (subscriber, #13312) [Link]

More evidence of the US Patent and Trademark Office's continuing effort to destroy the U.S. economy...

Gemalto sues Google, HTC, Motorola and Samsung

Posted Oct 26, 2010 22:38 UTC (Tue) by chojrak11 (guest, #52056) [Link]

This American patent system is rotten to the roots, same as your economy. We're all heading imminent disaster soon.