Apple's Patent War on Linux Turns Back Against Apple, Which Allegedly Resorts to Using Patent Trolls
- Dr. Roy Schestowitz
- 2011-12-16 00:03:20 UTC
- Modified: 2011-12-16 00:03:20 UTC
Summary: Apple's aggressive moves against Linux-powered phones/tablets end up putting Apple's business at risk and Apple is seen paying trolls, possibly with ill intent
THE behaviour of Apple has become increasingly relevant to us because Apple attacks Free/Open Source software.
The patent hoarding of Apple
is further exacerbated with additions that are later being used to block sales of Android devices. There is
reactionary motion to ban Apple devices as means of deterrence and the
outcome can be serious for Apple's business.
Ironically, the fight which was started by Apple
does not turn out too well, at least not in
the conventional way.
As we showed a couple of days ago, it is now Apple that risks embargo. In an article from Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols he labels this
"revenge" and notes that:
A German court has just issued a preliminary injunction on Motorola’s behalf that blocks European sales of all Apple’s 3G-enabled devices.
A Microsoft booster
helps show that Apple is additionally hurting open standards with its software patents. To quote:
Opera developer Haavard Moen has accused Apple of repeatedly using patents to undermine the development of Web standards and block their finalization.
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the industry group that governs and oversees the development of Web standards, requires that every specification it approves be implementable on a royalty-free basis, barring extraordinary circumstances that justify an exception to this rule. The specifications can contain patented technology, as long as royalty-free patent licenses are available.
Nilay Patel, who previously (as in
this case) spread anti-Android (and thus Apple-sympathetic) messages through boosters who had helped Microsoft lobbyists,
seeds this story, which goes along
the lines of "Samsung did not play nice with Apple". Meanwhile,
"Apple appears to have entered an unusual deal with a company commonly referred to as a patent troll." Ars Technica writes:
Apple may be using patent troll to do its legal dirty work
It appears that Apple has made a deal with patent troll Digitude Innnovations to help the company's efforts to sue nearly every major mobile device maker. Digitude earlier this month launched one of its first legal attacks against Nokia, RIM, Motorola, HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony, and even Amazon, filing a patent infringement claim with the International Trade Commission. Conspicuously absent from that list is iPhone maker Apple, which until late November owned two of the patents being used to target "certain mobile devices" from its competitors.
We have already seen Microsoft using patent trolls as proxies in attacks on Android, so let's keep an eye on this. Apple is desperate to block Android because its core business may depend on it. Apple previously paid the world's biggest patent troll.
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Comments
Charles Oliver
2011-12-16 02:53:29
* Actually Canute was trying to prove that there are limits to power but that's not how it's portrayed, mostly**.
** If repeated enough a falsehood can seem to ring true, like "Windows works better" or "Chrome is more secure than Firefox"***.
*** Of course that Asus campaign was maybe penance exacted by Microsoft for the original EEEPC, and Google paid for the research that shows Chrome is the most secure browser ****
**** obviously picked up a trick from the IE bag * <- infinite loop.
Charles Oliver
2011-12-16 02:37:29
In the end though the patent system is all bad. Apple and Microsoft might be an investors in Intellectual Ventures, the patent troll par excellence, but then so is Google.
Apple might spin out a patent troll company but then Google will probably do the same via Motorola Mobility (if they don't, they leave Apple with an advantage).
In the end nothing will crush Android, so Apple are maybe only protecting short term profits with their attempt to slow Android dominance.
It is interesting that a company started by a couple of hippies is such a corporate cupcake these days. Pity really. I think Apple and Microsoft have done good stuff in the past. Ok they might have bought a lot of the stuff that they are known for but Google bought Android.
Michael
2011-12-16 00:52:28
Just a shred... would be more than you have shown so far.
Michael
2011-12-16 02:54:53
Let us look at the history... what came before Samsung's undeniable copying of Apple?
As far as I know that was the start between Samsung and Apple... though Google's copying of iOS might be considered the start as well.
I agree there are massive problems with the patent system - but what other than patents protects an innovative company from the type of behavior Samsung has shown?
I do not pretend to understand all of the details of these patent wars - and I certainly do not hold Apple blameless. Nor Google. Sounds like you pretty much agree... where Roy just focuses on attacking Apple and Google. That is one of the things I argue against.
I tend to agree... and do not know what their long term strategy is. One good thing to come from this is both Apple and Google are being pushed to innovate... for now it seems Apple is (overall) ahead but Google is not standing still.
I think there is room for all three companies in the mobile space... and think the competition is good for all of us.
The problem I see is where to draw the line from being inspired by the competition - which is natural and good - and out and out copying the competition which is clearly wrong. Apple thinks Google crossed the line... maybe they did and maybe they did not. Samsung, however, clearly did - as the links above so clearly show.
walterbyrd
2011-12-16 04:13:44
"Undeniable" my ass. The JooJoo/crunchpad had rounded corners, and a flat screen, and it had a prototype out before the iPad.
Aside from those "ideas" not being from Apple to begin with, the ideas are laughably frivolous.
What other ideas did Apple "re-invent?" How about color icons, and kinetic scrolling?
Apple is clearly trying to restrain free trade with a series of frivolous IP lawsuits.
Michael
2011-12-16 04:29:58
Again, I am talking about the evidence, not your wishes. If you have evidence please show it.
Apple completely re-invented the phone and then the tablet. Nobody was doing what they were before them. Look at the reports when it first came out.
If you have evidence of this - something to counter what you have been shown - then please show it. Without that you are speaking of your wishes and not of what the evidence shows.
mcinsand
2011-12-18 01:11:36
Woo-hoo! I do hope this is the start of Apple and MS getting what they deserve! Their efforts to exerminate choice might be exterminated, after all!
Michael
2011-12-18 02:19:32
That happened *after* Samsung had already done what you have shown:
For Apple's lawsuit to have started it, Apple would need to have a time machine to somehow have started it before that which the lawsuits were a reaction to. Now while Apple's backup solution is called "Time Machine", I assure you it is not a real time machine that allows your claim to be accurate.
In other words: you are claiming that something that happened *after* the start of the battle is the start.
Oh, it is horribly broken... and Apple has been pushed to make some rather odd claims as they use this broken system. As have others. No doubt.
This is not about your emotional reaction, "sympathy" as you say. I am looking at this rationally - and the evidence is clear: when your "first" act is proceeded by a obviously "sleazy" behavior by Samsung, then it is Samsung who acted first and Apple which *reacted*. You do not like the reaction. So be it.
There is no "duopoly". Roy made that up.