09.24.10
Apple, Oracle, and Software Patents of Convenience
Jobs image licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License (version 1.2 or any later versions); Ellison patch By Thomas Hawk
Summary: Rumours and speculations that Oracle might prepare to buy ARM Holdings may arouse the suspicion that Android is Ellison’s target
OIN has added Mozilla as a licensee and pro-GNU/Linux bloggers keep talking about it. One person remarked:
I hope OIN is good for Mozilla, but what about Oracle? #swpats
The troubling thing is that despite Oracle and Google both being inside the OIN shield zone, Oracle decided to sue Google using software patents [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6] and interestingly enough, as Groklaw points out, they are assigned the same judge as in the Apple vs. Psystar case.
Google has appeared in the Oracle v. Google litigation and they have extra time to file an answer to Oracle’s complaint. Meanwhile, they’ve added some more lawyers to the team and informed the court they decline to have the case handled by a magistrate judge, so it’s been assigned to the Hon. William Alsup. What are the odds? That’s the same judge who presided over the Apple v. Psystar case.
Previously we found rumours that Apple would buy ARM (reported less than a year ago in many news outlets) and also learned that Steve Jobs’ friendship with Larry Ellison might have something to do with the legal attack on Android [1, 2, 3] (Apple is also suing Android using software patents). Right now there is news suggesting that Oracle — not Apple — might buy ARM Holdings, which recently signed a deal with Microsoft.
ARM Holdings Plc, the U.K. designer of chips that power Apple Inc.’s iPhone, rose the most in two weeks in London trading after Oracle Corp. Chief Executive Officer Larry Ellison said his company may buy a chipmaker.
ARM rose as much as 6.8 percent to 417.5 pence, and traded up 6 percent to 414.4 pence as of 12:19 p.m., valuing the company at about 5.47 billion pounds ($8.6 billion).
“We primarily think this is about Ellison,” said Lee Simpson, an analyst at Jefferies Intl Ltd. in London, adding that the “Oracle speculation is unwarranted” and that the company would more likely target an enterprise-focused chipmaker such as Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Has Oracle not gotten enough from Sun’s SPARC? Back when it was rumoured that Apple would buy ARM people said that it can be seen as an attack on Android. Could the strong friendship between Ellison and Jobs play a role here? As pointed out some hours ago, collusion of this kind if a lot more common than people dare to imagine. █
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dyfet said,
September 25, 2010 at 5:08 am
It is worth remembering another excellent technology was destroyed very in this manner to serve the needs of the Microsoft-Intel oligarchy. I am speaking of the Dec Alpha, a chip that could have made 64 bit computing already common-place a decade earlier and end continued extensions of the life of defective Intel design architectures.
Agent_Smith said,
September 25, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Indeed, I compare the collusion M$/Intel – Wintel – as the dark ages of spanish inquisition. If it was not that collusion, which made personal computing lag behind, I wonder where would we be today. Already in Mars, perhaps…
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
September 25th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
We’ve landed some robots there, without Windows.