Are Google's Patents Too Weak To Protect Android? 257
An anonymous reader writes "The Guardian published an opinion piece written by former-NoSoftwarePatents-activist-turned-controversial-patent-blogger Florian Mueller. He lists 12 patent lawsuits instigated against Android last year, says there are many more to come, and believes that Google's portfolio of only 576 US patents is dwarved by those of Apple, Microsoft, Oracle and others. So Google can't retaliate against aggressors such as Oracle. Consequently — he argues — Android makers will have to remove functionality or pay high license fees, and the operating system will become unprofitable for handset makers. Even the app ecosystem could suffer, he says. Since Google received only 282 new US patents in 2010, the gap between Google's portfolio and those of its competitors is widening further: Apple produces about twice as many, and Microsoft gets more than 3,000 new ones a year. Let's discuss this: is Android really in for so much trouble? Can't Google find other ways (than owning many patents) to defend it than countersuing? How about its vast financial resources?"
Hmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
How much does anyone want to bet that this supposed "anonymous reader" is Florian himself?
Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me think.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Android runs on... oh... ...Samsung phones and ...Sony-Ericson phones and ...creative device and ...sharp devices and ...benq devices and ...motorola devices ...NEC devices ...LG devices.
If these conpanies put together a paten pool to protect android, then its enough to sue Apple and Microsoft together to Hell and back (not to mention Oracle is not goiung to make these customers angry). All of the companies sold mobile devices long before Apple thought about it. Even Nokia should fear such a consortium when it comes to patents regarding mobile devices.
Re:Or... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:pony up the ca$h google (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't forget that it's not just google that can't let andriod go. All of the members of the open handset alliance would be hurt to some degree if android were encumbered. I don't expect the carriers that have the iPhone to care much but Motorola and Samsung should.
Re:pony up the ca$h google (Score:2, Insightful)
Which is exactly why Google's patent portfolio isn't all that relevant. Anyone going after Android would be facing opposition from the entirety of the OHA, which between them have a massive portfolio. I also think it's a bit ridiculous to measure the strength of someone's patent portfolio solely on number of patents; in these kinds of patent standoffs all that matters is how much each side infringes on the other.
Patent Lag Times - Especially Software (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason that Google has comparatively fewer software patents issuing every year is because there's often a massive lag behind filing a patent and having it issued. I've seen software patents that have taken as long as 6 or 7 years before it gets issued due to the amount of prosecution done on it. 6 or 7 years ago, Google was a much smaller (and newer) company with much less resources to file software patents. In comparison, the reason Apple gets 3000 patents a year is because they've been in business for over 20 years.
Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)
There are better indications that the story is bollocks.
Argument: Google is being sued a lot because it doesn't have a big enough patent collection to counter-sue.
Evidence: 12 suits.
Let's see... 8/12 are suits by patent trolls or companies in completely different industries. No size of patent pool would dissuade them as they do not produce *anything* in the same industry. 4/12 are relevant.
Conclusion: The size of Google's patent warchest is irrelevant in 66% of cases and the author is an idiot.
Re:We are in the midst of software patent armagedd (Score:4, Insightful)
How is software unlike any other industry?
* Extremely low barrier of entry. When you can essentially develop a product for free, filling a patent is often unfordable. Hence, they benefit large established players against small competitors - especially those who don't seek a commercial gain (see multiple Open Source projects)
* Fast paced development. For many industries, 20 years is a limited period of time. For software, it's an eternity. Patents are supposed to convince inventors to open up their inventions in exchange for a limited monopoly. 20 years from now, how will the H.264 patents benefit society?
* Patents are not a inalienable right - they're a right designed to promote innovation. Anyone who knows the software industry knows its completely absurd to say that patents are a condition for innovation.
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today."
--Bill Gates (1991)
Re:Let me think.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is simply to say that it is unclear whether anyone other than HTC is 100% committed to Android as the primary stack. I think it is also instructive to note that HTC at one time was a developer of MS phones. It may be that the best way for MS to gain market share is to scare phone makes into not using Android.
It is a complicated relationship. Apple is being sued because it is not part of the club, and entered successfully into a market it is not wanted. The lack of phone experience meant it likely did step on some patents. Google is being sued because in it's arrogance it tried to do OSS independently, not using existing tech and experience. In the search market, which was immature, that was fine. But in the mature phone market, with an old incumbency, MS included, Google and Apple as upstarts are trouble.
Re:We are in the midst of software patent armagedd (Score:2, Insightful)
How is software unlike any other industry?
* Extremely low barrier of entry. When you can essentially develop a product for free, filling a patent is often unfordable. Hence, they benefit large established players against small competitors - especially those who don't seek a commercial gain (see multiple Open Source projects)
Small electronics also have an extremely low barrier of entry. Should they also be unpatentable as a field?
Additionally, I think a blanket judgement that all software development has an extremely low barrier of entry is a bit broad. There's a lot of money that gets spent on software development - is your position that it's all wasted, since you could essentially accomplish the same for free?
And finally, there's no requirement that someone get a patent, and since the patent system is supposed to encourage public disclosure as opposed to keeping trade secrets, it's really irrelevant to open source.
* Fast paced development. For many industries, 20 years is a limited period of time. For software, it's an eternity. Patents are supposed to convince inventors to open up their inventions in exchange for a limited monopoly. 20 years from now, how will the H.264 patents benefit society?
But for many other industries, 20 years is an eternity. But no one's calling for the abolishment of patents on, say, dermatological products, or nanotechnology. In fact, while 20 years may be a short time in mature industries, when those same industries were young, development was very fast. The Wright Brothers made their first powered flights in 1904. 7 years later, there were dozens of different types of planes of myriad designs in operation in WWI. But no one was calling for the abolishment of patents on airplanes.
* Patents are not a inalienable right - they're a right designed to promote innovation. Anyone who knows the software industry knows its completely absurd to say that patents are a condition for innovation.
Actually, they're designed to promote efficient innovation. People innovated before patents existed: they just kept everything as a trade secret. As a result, people had to keep re-inventing the same solutions since they never got shared.
As for the claim that patents aren't needed in the software industry, because look how innovative it is... you do realize that there are software patents, right? So, it's a bit odd to claim "see how fast this industry with patent protection is developing? Therefore, it doesn't need patent protection."
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today."
--Bill Gates (1991)
How about the full quote? Deliberately clipping off the contradictory clause is not just misleading, it's lying.
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today... The solution to this is patent exchanges with large companies and patenting as much as we can."