Bonum Certa Men Certa

Apple's Patent Cases Against Android Are Falling Apart, as Acknowledged Even by the Anti-Android Lobby

Patents on trivial concepts can't carry water for Apple

Replica



Summary: Apple's attacks on Android (and by extension Linux) run short of results

DESPITE Apple's 'generous' payments to IDG (e.g. for advertisements), IDC's parent company, IDC now reports (as widely covered in the media) that Apple is unlikely to ever catch up with Android and Apple's stock rapidly collapsed recently, costing the company around $100 billion in overall value.



Apple saw the writings on the wall some years ago. It started suing Android half a decade ago, taking advantage of a notorious patent system (the USPTO) that is such an utter joke that it actually let McDonalds have patents on making burgers (patents protectionism) just when in the US, based on this new report, some people are copyrighting a chicken sandwich (or at least trying to). Remember that Oracle attacks Android not only using patents but also copyrights (on APIs). CPTN, a consortium built around Novell's patents with Apple, Microsoft and Oracle at its core, shows that there is a proprietary software collusion against Android/Linux. Microsoft has been destroying Nokia to turn it into a patent troll, using its patents to feed Android-hostile trolls like MOSAID.

Outside the US (although increasingly in the US too) Apple has not been so lucky when it comes to fighting Android. Watch Europe for instance. Aside from the fact that the system isn't biased in favour of US companies (like the ITC tends to be), Apple’s slide-to-unlock patent, to give just one example, is nothing more than an old gate lock (thousands of years old) borrowed for digital metaphors. It's just not patentable in many places, including in Europe. Apple has ultimately embarrassed itself by even trying to follow Steve Jobs' "thermonuclear" (apocalyptic) plan.

“Apple's anti-Android/anti-Samsung patents are an endangered species in every jurisdiction in which they get challenged (and may soon be an extinct species in Europe)...”
      --Florian Müller
According to Florian Müller, who has been working for Microsoft (and based on some reports also for Apple) as a sort of lobbyist, Apple continues to be defeated in Europe. To put it in his own words: "The spring 2014 armistice with Google has a major downside for Apple: it related only to infringement cases, not to challenges to the validity of its patents, a fact that was not clear at the time of the original announcement. Five months ago, the European Patent Office revoked Apple's iconic rubberbanding patent on a Europe-wide basis. The sole remaining party opposing the grant of that patent was Motorola. I have no doubt that Google (not Lenovo) is the driving force behind this continuing effort to shoot down Apple patents, and I guess Google is paying Quinn Emanuel for representing Motorola in cases such as that one.

"Today, Google and QE's continuing efforts have succeeded once again (and most probably not for the last time): the Federal Court of Justice, Germany's highest court (besides, theoretically, the Federal Constitutional Court, which has never heard a patent case in its history), today announced (German-language press release) affirmance of the Federal Patent Court's April 2013 decision to invalidate the German part of Apple's European slide-to-unlock patent."

In another article from Müller the failures of Apple are shown to be broader than just in Europe. To quote: "Apple's anti-Android/anti-Samsung patents are an endangered species in every jurisdiction in which they get challenged (and may soon be an extinct species in Europe), except for the Northern District of California, where Judge Lucy Koh has so far acted as if she was the World Wildlife Fund for Apple patents. But a tipping point may have been reached at which conservation will come to an end even in her district court."

When even Müller has no favourable opinion on Apple's case it's easy to conclude that Apple totally lost the plot.

Let's hope that Apple will rot on its own, without (any longer) trying to take Android down along with it.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Openwashing Shills Initiative (OSI) - Part II: Lying to the IRS is a Big Issue
The OSI of today pretends to be something that it is not
Bloodlust and Love of Blades (Fascination With Murder) Nothing New Among Microsofters
Violence is not a joke and no group is magically entitled to make such "jokes"
Links 01/06/2025: Bird Flu, Food Price Inflation, and Growing US-China Hostilities
Links for the day
Links 01/06/2025: "Vibe Coding" Turns Out to be a Fraud and Amazon Merits Boycott, Argue Bloggers
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/06/2025: "Stardust" and Ideal PC Setup
Links for the day
Links 01/06/2025: Windows TCO, Openwashing, "It's FOSS" Still Promoting Microsoft
Links for the day
Gemini Links 01/06/2025: Simplification and Networks Everywhere
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, May 31, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, May 31, 2025
Google Bribes EFF. EFF Promotes LLM Slop as 'Fair Use'. To GAFAM It's a Low-Cost Lobby Hedge.
So the bribes pay off ("slush fund") and the word spreads
Slopwatch: Fake Text and Images, Financial Bubbles, and Scams in "Intelligent" Clothing
Sometimes what they mean by "AI" is just cheap labour somewhere else, as we discussed in IRC a few hours ago
Why Microsoft is Collapsing (Similar to What's Happening at IBM), As Insiders See It
IBM seems like one heck of a mess
Reliable Computing Means Free (Libre) Computing
Sites that want to promote security ought to deal with the biggest issues
Links 31/05/2025: US Court Orders Sides With RFE/RL, War Updates From Ukraine
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/05/2025: ARM Server and power_supply Subsystem
Links for the day
Links 31/05/2025: Slop Stigmatised as Disinformation, Catalyst/Driver of "Death of Communication"
Links for the day
Common Sense 101: Do Not Write Blog Posts Saying You Want to Murder Colleagues (or Yourself)
Only crazy people would think stabbings are a joke
Microsoft Bankruptcy
"Microsoft unit in Russia to file for bankruptcy, database shows"
Techrights Does Not Compete With LLM Slop, It Exposes the Bastards, Plagiarists and Scammers Who Do That
People like Scam Altman, still facing a lawsuit from his own sister for sexual abuse against her
Links 31/05/2025: Microsoft-Connected Builder.ai is a Fraud and US is Purging Students Based on Race/Nationality
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Limmat, Doomscrollers, and Arguments Parsing
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, May 30, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, May 30, 2025
The "AI" (Slop) Bubble Already Popped, But It's Not an Overnight Collapse
where Microsoft put its money
No More Steven Astorino at IBM, Chatter About Weekly/Nonstop Layoffs at IBM
What happened? Good luck guessing.
Looking at Corruption in Europe, Going Beyond the EPO
Expect a new series to kick off very soon
Slopwatch: Security SPAM and LLM Slop for SEO and FUD Purposes, Perpetually Tarnishing the Perception of Linux and (Open)SSH Security
A lot of this Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt (FUD) comes from Microsoft and its LLMs
Links 30/05/2025: Google's LLM Slop Pushers Are Killing Journalism and Shira Perlmutter Fails to Stop Bribed Regime From Legalising Plagiarism (in "AI" Clothing)
Links for the day
Links 30/05/2025: Offline Arts and "Threshold of Patience"
Links for the day
Signing Off Serious Lies With a Statement of Truth is No Joking Matter
It's not hard to see what's happening here
Links 30/05/2025: LLM Slop Already Ingests and Vomits Its Own Garbage, Facebook Exec Admits Copyrights a Concern Too
Links for the day
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Result in More Whistleblowers From Microsoft
Microsoft's predatory pricing is further
Slopwatch: Planet Ubuntu Became LLM Slop and Some People Fail to See the Immorality of Plagiarism
it lessens the incentive for people to publish real articles
EPO Poll: 68% Dissatisfied With Quality of Slop (Wrongly Framed as "AI") for Patent Classification
Slop does not work, it's just falsely advertised with extra hype (funded by slop pushers that sponsor the major media)
Big Crowds Gather to Learn About Software Freedom From the Man Who Started GNU/Linux in 1983
"It was a great success"
Microsoft Layoffs Again in Bay Area
Microsoft relies on people's false belief that being "in LinkedIn" will get you a job; well, seems like even working inside LinkedIn really sucks and you lose the job
Gemini Links 30/05/2025: Fighting Against the Bad News, and Slop is Dehumanisation Disguised as "Intelligence"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, May 29, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, May 29, 2025