Hacker News Reader

Comment by gkoberger | Hacker News Reader

I don't see a scenario where Microsoft will actually use these patents against Firefox or Chrome. They're doing everything they can to curry favor with web developers, and they'll destroy it in one fell swoop if they even think about it.

That being said, I'm curious why they felt these patents were worth $1B. There must be something really special in there.

(Disclaimer: Mozilla employee with no knowledge outside of what's been posted on the Internet about it.)

View on HN

Back in the sands of time when Netscape begat Mozilla Foundation and released their source, they did so under the MPL, a license specifically written to grant patent rights where required to operate the software. I'm not sure how to interpret that, but I suspect Firefox would fare better in any war than Chrome or Safari.

Safari will do fine. Microsoft and Apple have a broad patent cross-licensing agreement. Chrome, on the other hand...

Motorola Mobility wants 4bn for patents relating to XBox and Win7 - 1bn for a better bargaining position could be worth it.

Is not like Google uses SSL, javascript, cookies or anything like that :)

Apparently Netscape patented them all once upon a time.

There was also mention of patents for messaging. Microsoft outright bought Skype, wich was bound to have patents in that area as well. Adding these patents to their portfolio must be helpful knowing some of their competition (Google, Apple).

> They're doing everything they can to curry favor with web developers

Only because they need it. If they can use those patents to achieve the same effect being nice would, I have no doubt they'll use force. As far as I know them, being nice isn't in their DNA.

In point of fact, they couldn't if they wanted to.

You see, once you have owned a patent, no one can use that particular patent against you. Ever.

So Firefox is safe, at least from those patents.

I'd love to believe that, but they paid a billion dollars for them, it's hard to imagine a public company shelling out that cash unless they expected to make back that money somehow...

Google can sue Bing to the ground, it's a cold war anyway. They will never go directly against each other. There are just proxy wars.

Maybe they did it for the same reason Google bought Motorola, to prevent a havoc AOL.

I can't imagine MS losing any goodwill they have gained in the past few years by attacking Firefox. Then we're talking about anti-trust all over again.

Chrome is another story, Motorola wants to ban Windows, XBox and other sales all over EU.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-57407991-17/microsoft-ends... "on a typical $1,000 laptop, Microsoft must pay Motorola $22.50 in royalties for 50 patents related to H.264. In order to get full H.264 functionality, Microsoft must also license 2,300 other patents from 29 different companies. The company pays 2 cents for each $1,000 laptop to use those patents."

They even refused the bond MS was willing to post while the matter in on appeal. Looks like MS bought specially designed nukes to use against a particular and well-armed adversary.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com