Comment by archgrove | Hacker News Reader

Comment by archgrove | Hacker News Reader

It's worthwhile looking at a couple of infographics in this case:

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/whos-suing-whom-i...

http://blog.thomsonreuters.com/index.php/mobile-patent-suits...

Basically, you can't purchase a smartphone without choosing to back someone who's suing someone over patent issues. Do I agree with Apple's patent wars? No. Do I agree with Googles (nee Motarola)? No. But if you want to boycott people over them, you're basically back to a Nokia dumb phone. Oh, wait - they're suing people too. Tin can and a bit of string, anyone?

The entire patent system is broken, both for the speed at which things happen in technology, and for the level of experience needed to see when something is "obvious". However, I can't feel too bad for Samsung in this case, viz: http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/09/29/apple-samsung-copyca... (just a few examples of their completely independent "inspiration"). The world does need some mechanism to prevent people from wholesale ripping off other people's work. It's just not the current patent situation.

Those infographics are a little too simple because you cannot determine who is the "bad guy" in each case simply based on the fact of who is suing whom.

For example, in the Apple vs Nokia case, I consider Apple the bad guys even though Nokia is the aggressor. As far as I'm aware, that case boils down to Apple refusing to accept patent cross-licensing as "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory", whereas I consider cross-licensing to be the epitome of FRAND.

Many of the other suits are direct or indirect cross-suits. The best defense is a good offense, etc.

Some aggressors are willing to accept money, others are blocking the importation of devices. I consider the latter more unacceptable.

Others are the flailings of dying companies. Still evil, yes, but better than the patents falling into the hands of NPE's.

At the moment, I believe that the worst aggressor by quite a large margin is Apple. Microsoft, Motorola and the purchasors of the Nortel patents (Apple, RIM, Microsoft, Sony, Ericsson and EMC) are being "evil", but the typical strategy for boycotts is to target the biggest/worst aggressor. (That's why McDonalds always gets targeted even though its behaviour is no different from its competitors).

There are notable exceptions: Samsung, HTC, Google and a few other makers of non-desirable phones. HTC doesn't have enough patents of its own to be an aggressor, and I have no doubt that Samsung would behave badly if that was in its own best interest, though.

However, supporting the companies that are "doing the right thing" still sends a marketplace signal, regardless of why they are doing the right thing.

I used to trust Google, though. If it doesn't put a stop to the Motorola shenanigans soon, they'll have lost all remaining credibility in my books. Don't give me this "arms-length" bullshit. Your motto says "don't be evil", which means that you're committed to behaving better than your peers, so do it.

The entire patent system is broken, and every large company is currently suing. I agree.

But all the current lawsuites from within the Open Handset Alliance are clearly just defensive moves against Apple, Microsoft and Oracle, who are the Aggressors in this patent war.

Apple started to attack HTC and Samsung over Android, and then the OHA fought back.

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