Oh biz-snap. Google is pissed.
the_technocrat
IC-MotY1Indy Icrontian
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/when-patents-attack-android.html
Sour grapes or legitimate concern?
Sour grapes or legitimate concern?
0
Comments
Sour grapes indeed. They're just trying to get the patents invalidated since Oracle's about to nail them to the wall with Java. And now Microsoft can nail them too.
Oracle won't be nailing shit, and Microsoft even less.
Only Apple is a serious threat.
That said; you're making the fatal errors of presuming that A) all patents have the same standards B) all patent reviews are treated the same C) all patents are granted on the same or similar terms.
All of these are 100% completely and utterly false.
A patent application is reviewed by one of thousands of people who review them at the USPTO. Standards are murky at best these days, and enforcement is lax. Case in point, someone was awarded a patent less than 15 years ago, for toast. I am not making this up. You can hear about this, and the behavior of patent trolls on This American Life episode 441.
Software patents in particular, are unnecessary in all ways, and nothing but an avenue for abuse of the legal system. Period. They're also skewed due to the costs - a software patent will cost you upwards of $25,000 to obtain on average. That's just the application itself, with no guarantee of receiving the patent. Over $5,000 of that cost represents just the patent search to ensure nobody has a prior patent.
Software patents are also unnecessarily broad in virtually every case. Just look at the lawsuits that have been in the technology news. A patent for "one click buying" - is this necessary at all? No. It's not. I have a friend who holds multiple patents relating to VoIP - some of them are so broad, I could personally invalidate them with prior art. There are patents on HTML Frames, in-line forum posting boxes, forums, and so on.
The problem here is that Google is whining over sour grapes, because they failed to win the bid on a nuclear weapon. In the meantime, Oracle stands a chance of destroying them - actual experts have noticed that Google's court tactics are those of someone who believes they stand a good chance of losing. In the meantime, Google just bought 1,000 patents from IBM, claiming it's a "defensive" move - try licensing those patents now. I'll give you a hint; you can't because Google won't. (IBM on the other hand, would.)
This is not how the patent system is supposed to work, or how it was ever supposed to work. For an example of how it's SUPPOSED to work:
Ultra holds a patent on modular PSU cables. That's right, that's patented. If you want to make a PSU with modular cables, you need to license the patent from Ultra. That means you negotiate a contract with Ultra where they get $0.25 for each PSU you sell or what have you. When this patent expires, Ultra will no longer be able to collect those licensing fees.
Pfizer owns the patent on Lyrica, a drug. They have chosen to use patent protection to have 17 years of exclusivity by not licensing the patent. After those 17 years, any drug manufacturer can use the patent as filed to create a "generic" Lyrica and Pfizer loses the ability to collect licensing fees or prohibit manufacturing by third parties.
Software innovates and develops much faster though. It also requires far, far less R&D time and money to develop a patentable idea. Especially because software patents have absurdly low bars. Did you know that there are no less than 12 patents that have been held by 20+ companies that can legally be interpreted as covering the entirety of S.M.A.R.T. on your hard drive? That's right - 12 software patents that cover the exact same thing. That's how broken it is. Virtually everything in software has prior art in some form, because that's just how software development works.
So here's how software patents really work:
Rather than license it, or offer licensing, companies sue first because they get patents that are virtually impossible to NOT violate. They use these patents to drive small companies and startups out of business, push around much larger corporations, and wrangle billions of dollars in settlements out of people who'd rather not spend the hundreds of thousands of dollars it takes to defend against a spurious patent suit.
If you sell software for a living, you will get hit with a patent suit, period. Because you have companies which operate at the very fringes of legality (Intellectual Ventures) that spend all their money on lawyers to do just this, you have companies like Google who use them to prohibit others from competing, and you have only TWO large patent holders that license in advance - IBM and Microsoft. No joke.
Related, and required listening for this discussion IMO:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/441/when-patents-attack
edit: IC broke mah embed
"Patents are totally awesome and great when we own them. But when we lose the bid after saying they weren't worth anywhere near that much? They're evil and bad and everyone's ganging up on us." It's only "hostile" and "bad" when Google loses. This is a company whinging about bidding over $3.14B for a set of patents they publicly insisted weren't "worth even $1B". Several times. And they rejected multiple partnerships as well, rest assured.
Everyone at this point, knows that Google is screwed with Oracle. The judge has told them point blank that they are likely to lose, and virtually guaranteed to lose if their employee who advised them to license patents from Sun and was overridden by Sergey and Brin themselves, is called to testify. Google knew they were violating patents, and are cocky and egotistical enough to believe nobody would sue them over a "free" OS.
No matter how much you love Google, they are screwed, and justifiably so. It's one thing if you're caught unawares by barely legal trolls like IV and their illegal shell companies. But Google KNEW they should have at least talked to Sun and Microsoft, and instead deliberately decided to violate. That's not a matter of validity of patents - that's purely ethics, or more accurately, a complete lack thereof.
That is truly lulzworthy from the Android fanbois. But what did we expect, sound reasoning and logic? Gods no. Can't have that.
Congratulations from My Little Ponytail does not constitute approval by any stretch of the imagination unless you are completely and utterly delusional. We're not talking "RootWyrm mad" here - we're talking "they need a clinical diagnosis NOW."
The author of that article is clearly detached from reality to such an extent that he refuses to admit to the fact that Oracle broke almost every blog when they implemented the redirects, then deleted almost all Sun blogs a few weeks after the redirects, deleted all Sun blogs for employees no longer with the company (Schwartz is in that category,) then put almost all technical and blog content behind paywalls a few weeks after that.
And it certainly wouldn't even remotely stand up in court. "So you're saying because the CEO congratulated you on launching a major product, he was therefore granting you a license to their entire patent library without the approval of the board or any company officers?" Yeah, a congratulatory statement is TOTALLY a binding contract right there. And by the way, I recall the post well; at no point in any post did Sun ever address licensing or use anything other than their meaningless, idiotic marketing language. They also did not know at that point that Android was in fact violating the patents in question, nor was Sun's organization even remotely capable of evaluating it at the time - they were hemorrhaging staff in every single department and cash.
EDIT: Derp. I met the man, I should remember how to spell Schwartz. Who is still an incompetent moron.
Good stuff, but nobody is screwed here. Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle will be around for a while yet. A few billion here and there won't hurt them...especially Apple.
Unfortunately, wrong determination. This isn't cuddly Microsoft who will just take your money and let you carry on. This is Larry "I OWN A BOAT" Ellison and his fiefdom. One of the remedies available to Oracle for infringement of patents is injunctive relief.
Rest assured, Unca Larry will not be happy taking Google's money alone. That's just not how he rolls. Oracle is going to go for the jugular and seek an injunction against Android for violating. If the court sides with Oracle on willful violation, then it's highly likely the court will grant that injunction - at the minimum prohibiting Google from releasing updates until they either don't violate or obtain a license. (The chances of forcing a recall of all Android phones is highly unlikely.)
Google isn't in it for anything but the money, no matter what their marketing department says. The fact is that Oracle will make it expensive as hell to comply, and removing the JDK from Android means losing everything built on it thus far. That means a lot of money. Billions of dollars potentially. And Android is already costing Google money hand over fist - they've already been outed as using the approval process as a club to make manufacturers and providers do what they want in a separate and similarly expensive court case. The business decision will be "drop Android." Costs will outweigh the benefits.
EVERY company is in it for the money. That's the point. I'd bet the farm Google does not drop Android over this.
I'd be in on this as well. Google knows full well that advertising has been and will continue to shift to the smart phone platform. Android is their way of making sure they can cash in on that. They may lose money on the platform directly, but they are raking in obscene amounts of cash from 1) the advertisements and 2) the Market.
Lol, "your opinion is wrong."
This happens to me all the time. I rarely get it right.
Lol "your opinion."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/35811761/Oracle-s-complaint-against-Google-for-Java-patent-infringement
Page 9, Prayer For Relief, Item B.
To Quote
Oracle's intentions and desire to shut down Google's distribution of infringing material otherwise known as Android, right there in black and white from day one. Oh, and let's not forget that Sun forced a settlement with Microsoft over adding things to Java previously. Because to implement JDK, you have always needed a license, which has always spelled out what you can and can't do.
Opinion, is stating that Oracle's likely to win because you like Oracle more. (Hint: I don't. I hate them more than all of you combined. My rage toward them is incandescent.)
Fact: Oracle has requested injunctive relief which would in fact prohibit Google from releasing any further updates that violate the patents in question.
Fact: Google has been told by Judge Alsup they are almost certainly going to be paying Oracle millions if not billions sooner or later.
Fact: Google demanded Oracle provide an independent expert's evaluation of damages in response to the "$1.6-6.1B" initial claim.
Fact: When Professor Iain Cockburn's independent report was too scary for Google, they demanded it be placed under seal and started claiming that Cockburn did it wrong, and was biased. The documents including the damages report remain mostly under seal (meaning only Google and Oracle and the court can read them.)
Fact: Google turned down an offer of $20M/yr for 3 years and 10% of Google's revenue directly from handsets from Sun capped at $25M/yr. (Totalling $45M/yr maximum.)
Fact: Google was advised internally by their own employees and Andy Rubin knew from at least 2010 that a Java license from Oracle (formerly Sun) was required.
Fact: Professor Cockburn concluded that Google would reasonably owe Oracle damages of $900M to $1.6B as an up front payment to make whole the infringing actions, and "a share of revenues attributable to Android of between 10 and 15 percent" - similar to the deal that Google turned down.
Fact: The court told Oracle and Google to go find two more experts they could both agree on, located in the Northern District of California. They have yet to locate any without substantial conflicts of interest, who are available, or that one or the other party refuses to accept.
Fact: Google walked away from licensing talks with Sun (prior to the buyout by Oracle) regarding Java in 2006 because it was "too expensive", and the judge has said that alone is likely to make it willful infringement.
Fact: the court does believe that Google knew they were infringing on patents on the basis that Google entered negotiations with Sun then abandoned them because of the cost. (You cannot claim the right to infringe because of cost; if you don't want to pay for it or charge your customers for it, you still aren't entitled to it for free.)
Fact: Microsoft is permanently prohibited from using the Java logo on any of their products because Sun forced a settlement over violation of Java copyrights relating to the JDK and API.
Fact: The Java 6 Patent Grant (which was released in December, 2006) specifically prohibits the exact thing Oracle alleges Google has engaged in. See sections 2 and 4c.
And now some napkin math; let's say that Google got their license from Sun in 2006 under the disclosed terms of $20M/yr for 3 years and $25M/yr of revenue.
That means that Google would have paid Sun a total of $135M over 3 years. Let's say Google makes $5 off every Android handset ACTIVATION, and is doing 73M handsets per year since 2009. That means Google made $365M in one year, of which they paid Sun $45M or roughly 12%. After that $45M, Google pays no more to Sun (now Oracle), and is not obligated to give Sun (now Oracle) a cut of any revenues from Android Marketplace whatsoever.
We already know from Skyhook that Google does some seriously fancy dances with accounting and actively bullies handset manufacturers. Remember Droid X delays? That has been shown to have been Google stopping Motorola from shipping it because of Skyhook. There is no question that Andy Rubin was directly involved in, and was fully aware of what was going on with Java.
That said, Google's model for Android licensing seems to have been designed around the 2006 negotiations with Sun. As Google would not have booked any revenue "directly attributable to handset sales" and only the location and personal information they collect and sell to others, Google would have only ever owed Sun $25M per year or a scant $75M. This is barely a blip on their balance sheet. So they basically passed on what likely would have been a sweetheart deal for them that guaranteed no lawsuit, and take their chances that Sun wouldn't sue them. (Sun generally, did not, because Schwartz is an idiot. McNealy started the Microsoft thing in 2002.)
Google knew that these lawsuits would come and it would cost them billions.
Opinion:
Google knows the long term reward of owning an operating system and/or browser share through advertising channel ownership will outweigh upfront licensing and lawsuit costs.
Opinion:
Google probably did make a poor choice in 2006, but Sun/Oracle would have found another way to sue them once the Android platform took off.
Opinion:
Android is not going anywhere, but prices may increase.
Fact:
None of us KNOW what is going to happen in the future.
Quesiton:
I'm Ron Burgundy?