Bonum Certa Men Certa

Apple and Microsoft FRAND Battles Against Google's Android Revisited, Apple's Patent Chief is Out Amid Blowback

Microsoft and Apple trademarks



Summary: A little update on Apple's and Microsoft's patent battles against Android/Linux

Google bought a part of Motorola, essentially inheriting some lawsuits over the future of Android when it comes to patents. This means that Google now has this dispute with Microsoft and another one with Apple. "It’s been relatively quiet in the Western District of Washington over the past couple weeks," say the FRAND boosters, "as Motorola and Microsoft move forward toward an August jury trial on Microsoft’s RAND-based breach of contract claims."



"Apple tried embargoing Android products, instead ending up with its own products embargoed."FRAND has become a joint Microsoft-Apple strategy for taxing Android. Apple is still suing, publicly escorted by Microsoft for support. Now it turns out that Apple's patent chief is leaving and he may have been the person behind this whole litigation strategy. Apple was previously dealing with patents on a defensive basis, but in 2009 it turned offensive, starting with threats against Palm [1, 2, 3]. The following year it started suing. Here is a case of Apple being sued. In this case, the US "Supreme Court declines to hear Mirror Worlds' appeal, putting to rest the long-running patent infringement case."

More interestingly, when it comes to Apple as the aggressor, it turns out its patent chief played a major role. The aforementioned article says that he "played an increasingly high-profile role at Apple in recent years as lawsuits began to mount. Last year, he testified on Apple's behalf in its patent infringement litigation with Samsung."

It also says that "he warned late Apple CEO Steve Jobs and then-COO Tim Cook in 2010 that Samsung's smartphones may infringe on the iPhone's patents."

According to this article about the judge in this high-profile case, there is something to be learned from public debates:

Want to know what U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh really thinks about patent litigation?

Companies demand too many do-overs; the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office behaves like no other federal agency; and the recent suggestion in a New York Times op-ed that lower court judges have the power to make so-called patent trolls pay for vexatious litigation is unfair and misleading.


Judge Posner weighed in on this [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] as he dismissed Apple's claims, denying the embargo strategy that Apple had conceived. Watch Apple scrambling to undo what the ITC embargo against Apple would cause. As Groklaw puts it, "the ITC early in June ordered an injunction and a cease and desist order against some of Apple's products, on a complaint from Samsung that Apple was refusing to pay anything at all for a FRAND patent of Samsung's. The shock waves from that were heard throughout the patent universe. And now Apple is trying to block it from happening. Both Apple and Samsung have filed written submissions with the USTR, as The Essential Patent Blog reports. The President of the United States can undo that ITC injunction order based on the public interest, and Apple is asking the Office of the United States Trade Representative, as the President's representative in such matters, to do exactly that..."

"With Apple's patent chief out of the company, perhaps a rethink of this misguided litigation strategy is imminent."This is funny. Apple tried embargoing Android products, instead ending up with its own products embargoed. Instant karma! And watch Apple's workers in China "looking to reduce reliance on Apple" (but "diversifying into R&D, software patents and e-commerce"). According to this, people who actually manufacture Apple-branded devices are seeing a dip in demand for Apple, an overrated and overpriced brand. Linux/Android is the cause, hence all those patent lawsuits. With Apple's patent chief out of the company, perhaps a rethink of this misguided litigation strategy is imminent. One can hope so.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Michael “Monty” Widenius: It Started in 1983 With Richard Stallman (RMS)
The other co-founder of MySQL is a bit notorious for confronting RMS rather viciously
For the Second Time in a Few Weeks Microsoft Lunduke Makes False Accusations Against Senior Red Hat Staff to Incite a Despicable 'Troll Army'
Nothing that Microsoft Lunduke claims of says can be trusted
 
Links 03/10/2025: Lawyers Caught Using LLM Slop Explain Why They Did It, LibreSSL 4.1.1 and 4.0.1 Released
Links for the day
FSF Board Grew 50% Since Last Year, Has New President, Turns 40 in Two Days
It's a good move for the FSF and - by extension - for software freedom
Links 03/10/2025: Conflicts, Death of TypePad, and TikTok/CheeTok Gives a Boost to Far Right Groups in Europe
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 02, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 02, 2025
Slopwatch: Linux Journal, Google News, and LinuxSecurity
They carry on polluting the Web with fake articles
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: Kubernetes With FreeBSD and robots.txt
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: 'Open' 'AI' Resorting to Gimmicks and Fake Funding, Europe’s ‘Drone Wall’ Discussed
Links for the day
Links 02/10/2025: Brave Passes 100M Users Milestone, Kodak Selling Its Own Film Again
Links for the day
su lisa && rm -rf /home/ibm/power
Novell was ruined by another person from IBM, Ronald Hovsepian
A Record Demand at Microsoft: Demand to Cancel
What we're witnessing is a very ungraceful destruction of XBox
Microsoft is Losing Europe
Hence all the "support" and "discount" offers that are limited to Europe
The Free Software Foundation Starts Fund-raising for 40th Anniversary
New pop-up 2-3 days ahead of the 40th anniversary event
Systemd Breaks Networking in Debian and Microsoft Staff Rushes to Make Face-Saving Excuses in LWN
Microsoft's bluca is already there in the comments, his Microsoft money pays for LWN to let him leave comments early
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 01, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 01, 2025
What the End of XBox Will Look Like: a Fiery Crash
XBox is the next Skype. It won't last much longer. Expect many more layoffs.
Richard Stallman is Going to Finland to Give a Talk Next Thursday
A day later he speaks in Sweden
Gemini Links 02/10/2025: SMTP Pipelining and End of ROOPHLOCH 2025
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Plagiarism, Fake Articles, and FUD About Linux
not a day goes by without Google News feeding FUD from slopfarms
Gemini Links 01/10/2025: Chat Control and End of Life
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: Long Covid Risk Reiterated, "Bitcoin Queen" Caught
Links for the day
Links 01/10/2025: EA $55 Billion Deal is Debt and Slop "Raises Vishing Risks"
Links for the day
Bluewashing at Red Hat Means Redundancies
The man who sold Red Hat to IBM meanwhile became a Microsoft Mono booster
After Killing OpenSource.com, IBM ('Red Hat') and OSI Told Us OpenSource.net Would Replace It (But That Didn't Happen)
Now it's time to move on, perhaps tarnishing the "Open Source" label some more (for whatever sponsor wants this)
Linux is Not a Community Project, It's a Wall Street Product
The core goal should be freedom
Bad Actors Abusing the Free Software Community, Vandalising It Using Rogue Politics and Old Tactics
Oil giants have long attempted to do this; now, the digital equivalent of Big Oil does this in technology
Social Control Media Isn't the Future, The Federation or Fediverse Isn't Growing, People's Accounts Vanish for Good
users' accounts will get deleted, not just become inactive
IBM is Failing, This Helps Show Wall Street is Entirely Detached From Actual Commercial Performance
IBM is unable to grow, it's just constantly shrinking
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, September 30, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Clerical Aspects of Publishing and Development
In Free software, the management aspects are considerably reduced
Slopwatch: Fake Articles and Google News Promoting "Linux" Spam or Bot-Generated Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD)
These slopfarms help misplace blame
Third Wave of Microsoft Layoffs in September, This Time Many in Liverpool Affected
Be ready for more waves of layoffs ahead of the so-called "results" in late October