Apple, Google reportedly in patent truce talks | Hacker News Reader

Apple, Google reportedly in patent truce talks

techcrunch.com

44 pointsmorisy48 comments

I've thought for some time that Microsoft, Apple, and Google would end up forming a patent cartel. At some point they'll each have the patent equivalent of mutually assured destruction. It seems to me that it is in their interest to maintain the present patent system, not sue each other, and then crush any newcomers. It may not happen now but it will happen eventually, I think.

I'd hope that "don't be evil" would preclude Google from participating in a patent cartel to keep newcomers out of the market. Maybe not, though.

Google is just like every other company, don't be fooled by any slick slogans.

They've already formed a consortium to buy kodak's patents[0] so I wouldn't be surprised to see them going further.

[0]http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57495400-92/google-apple-to...

I think the existence of non-practicing entities is at least a small counterweight to that. A cartel doesn't do you much good if an NPE can come in and slap you with a multi-million dollar lawsuit. A million dollars here, a million dollars there, and soon enough you start talking about real money.

Actually it does if all of the patents are licensed to a defensive patent pool arranged like http://www.rpxcorp.com/.

But, you ask, what good does that do? Well read the explanation in http://www.rpxcorp.com/index.cfm?pageid=23 for why not to take a wait and see approach. You'll see that they are willing to sell their patents. So if a member is being sued by a troll, RPX can offer a deal where the troll drops the existing lawsuit, and is sold a new patent with a license protecting current (not future!) members of RPX.

How likely are they to actually engage in this kind of behavior? Well RPX is already selling patents to trolls, and thinks that companies will take the risk that they'll care a patent you care about seriously enough that it is listed as a major selling point. If they can increase that risk while serving current clients (eg Google), what reason would they have to hesitate about that deal?

This may be paranoia. But there are 3 patents that were taken out in my name by a previous employer that have wound up in the RPX portfolio. I am somewhat worried that they will eventually wind up being used to sue companies.

> This may be paranoia. But there are 3 patents that were taken out in my name by a previous employer that have wound up in the RPX portfolio. I am somewhat worried that they will eventually wind up being used to sue companies.

This is why we have to make it not-socially-acceptable for programmers to play along with the patent games.

From now on programmers should know that if they have (new) patents in their name, they will be considered part of the problem.

And as I'm sure you are well aware, now you(or your current employer) could end up being sued for a patent you yourself invented.

John Carmack had it right all along: just say no to patents.

Trust me, if I had known a decade ago what I know now, I would not have any patents to my name. But I can't change what has already happened.

> From now on programmers should know that if they have (new) patents in their name, they will be considered part of the problem.

Remind me - why do I care? The answer should include who is considering such people as "part of the problem" and what they're doing about it.

For bonus points, explain what happened in the past when this "considered part of the problem" was done. (Yes, it has been done before.)

Defensive patent pools aren't much use against NPEs.

Re-read my comment. I demonstrated exactly how a defensive patent pool can protect its members against NPEs without paying a lot of money. Of course if they follow that strategy and it works, the rest of us wind up worse off.

> It seems to me that it is in their interest to maintain the present patent system

The present system helps and hurts them. All three are large varied companies who can't grow without offering new types of products and services that may infringe on other companies' patents. A well-functioning IP system is in their best interest. Certainly they don't want their current patents to be devalued, but I don't think they want patents to be overvalued either.

So far Google hasn't done that to newcomers. Microsoft and Apple have.

Apple has sued HTC and Samsung for patent violations. Which "newcomers" have they filed patent suits against?

Walk back 6 years, and virtually all smartphones were sold by Nokia. Of those that weren't, the majority were made up of Sony-Erickson and Motorola. Samsung was an also-ran at best, and (almost literally) no one had heard of HTC. Now they're #2 and #3. How are they not "newcomers".

Of course, Apple too is a newcomer by that metric. But nonetheless I don't think it's incorrect or inconsistent with the grandparent's point. I suspect if Nokia had shot first in 2009 and gotten an iPhone ban on something equivalently ridiculous, you'd be pretty upset, right?

>> no one had heard of HTC

To be fair, HTC was considered an up and comer around 2006. The main difference is that the HTC phones before the iPhone were mostly white labeled under the carrier names or under another company's name. My first HTC Windows Mobile phone was actually labelled as an "Audiovox" phone. My HTC Excalibur was sold in the US as the T-Mobile Dash.

Around 2006, however, HTC was just beginning selling under their own brand, and were doing quite well as a Windows Mobile smartphone maker. Of course, once Android came around, things got even better for them.

Nokia did shoot first and Apple paid them [edit]a similar sum[/edit] to the amount everyone is so up in arms about Samsung owing.

Thank you. So you've changed your mind and now think Apple shamelessly copied from Nokia and deserved to be sued. :)

Nokia was wrong. Apple was wrong. At least my opinions are consistent.

(edit: even the "similar sum" bit sounds a bit spun to me -- the settlement was obviously private, but one assumes someone would have noticed a billion dollars on Nokia's balance sheet)

Well I'm not the person you were replying too nor do I think you're the only one who's consistent here.

I think it proves the system doesn't lock out newcomers. You make a goodproduct it makes money, you pay off the people who's IP you walked over.

Well, it was noticeable. In the second quarter 2011 result Nokia reported a payment of 430 million Euros from Apple. The exchange rate was around 1.45 at that time, so that means 620 million Dollars were paid. Also Deutsche Bank analysts assumed an ongoing royalty of 1% from Apple. Which would mean Nokia gets every quarter another $200 million. But I am too lazy too check that up.

Interesting, thanks! I'll note, though, that given the 55M units Apple shipped in 2011 (hopefully that's right, read it off the google results page and didn't click through) it comes to about $11/unit. The 1% number, if it's based on retail price, is about a third of that. That's a big deal, and honestly much larger than I expected.

But reports were that Apple demanded $30/unit from Samsung, and pushed ahead with the suit when they didn't get it. That's not quite in the same realm of "compromise". Nokia was happy to be a parasite. Apple wants Samsung dead.

So the answer to my question is "nobody", then? Apple in fact hasn't sued startups using their patent portfolio?

I'm willing to be wrong but not willing to accept the idea that Apple is oppressing startups with their patent arsenal without at least one actual fact to back it up.

If they'd meant startups I doubt they'd have said and subsequently clarified the meaning of "newcomer".

Wouldn't RIM and Nokia belong to this cartel as well?

IIRC, RIM joined in on a group purchase of patents recently.

RIM and Nokia are on the dinner menu.

The only question is who pays, and who eats.

Most large companies are already part of a patent cartel called "RAND". It's pretty much a Mexican stand-off where all the major companies "trade" patent rights with each other rather than being sued into oblivion.

Where Apple went wrong was thinking it could start firing off lawsuits and not get crushed by the rest of the industry. Tim Cook would be smart to negotiate his way out of the mess.

> Where Apple went wrong was thinking it could start firing off lawsuits and not get crushed by the rest of the industry. Tim Cook would be smart to negotiate his way out of the mess.

In what way have they been wrong so far? They seem to piling up victories (Motorola, Samsung, Microsoft licensing) rather than defeats.

What was old is new again. All this has happened before, and all this will happen again. Apple, Google, and Microsoft are the new "Big Three" ( Ford, GM, Chrysler ).

History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. - Mark Twain

I am a cautiously hopeful. The peace pact won't last without some legislative change, and they probably know it, so we might just see some lobbying for a saner patent law, much in the same way that some alcoholics know not to keep drink in the house.

All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.

Yep. The last time a global thermonuclear patent war happened, it was even uglier ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Howard_Armstrong ).

To be honest, I knew this was going to happen. Apple made the lawsuit against samsung, but google has a big BIG bomb to throw: Map Reduce. If google whips out map reduce, apple is screwed. Basically without it apple will be VERY hard pressed to do business, it's techniques are used by many frameworks in the iphone. This would be the equivalent of the US throwing the a-bomb on japan. Apple being japan.

Apple, with googarolla's lawsuit, may have actually realized just how big of a bear they hit.

Now, I sure hope the dispute ends, BUT as yequalsx points out this is a dangerous slope. While I don't believe they will form a patent cartel, a 4th party trying to create a new mobile os will be in danger. While google won't sue, Applesoft might.

The whole "patents kill new entrants" idea has kind of been exploded by the fact that two companies that didn't make phone OS's 6 years ago and didn't have a lot of mobile IP now have close to 90% of the market.

Apple bought up several companies that did have relevant patents and technology. Google did the same thing.

In the age of nuclear patents, you either have to have tons of money to license patents, buy companies that own patents, or successfully be granted patents.

Why do I need tons of money to be granted a patent? Or license? What hypothetical new entrant to commercial scale phone design and manufacturing doesn't have any money?

OK, fine. "Patents kill new entrants who don't have multibillion-dollar war chests." Does that work better?

It might sound better but it doesn't align with the fact that not only Apple and Google are new entrants but the field is flooded with more competition then ever before.

Apple blasted open the gates at the carriers and now the writing is on the wall: build a better mousetrap and they will come. Android/linux is a set of cheap building blocks.

I'm sorry, this is a bit OT, but your last sentence has a lot of metaphor in it. Like, a lot.

I just wanted to lean back and appreciate how rich language is.

I certainly meant it in the most positive way. I'm a big iOS fan but I'm also a big Android fan. To say that Microsoft, Apple and Google are are going to shut out new entrants misses the fact that Android is mostly open sourced and ideal for new entrants like Xioami and Amazon to build on.

Phones have become more and more like computers over those 6 years (and this trend was obvious before that). Apple isn't a newcomer to the computer market (and their earlier history is serving them well - many of the patents they're using aggressively come from the 90s).

On the other hand, Google is a relative newcomer and it has been an issue for them (so much so that they eventually decided to buy one of the older players for their patents).

> it's techniques are used by many frameworks in the iphone.

Can you elaborate, or point to some further reading? I don't know that much about MapReduce or the iPhone, and I definitely don't know what kinds of patent Google holds related to MapReduce, but isn't MapReduce a framework for breaking up work to be done in a distributed fashion and then collating results? Is anything like that actually used in the iPhone?

I know what the functions "map" and "reduce" do, but those weren't invented by Google, and MR is only kind of related to them, from what I've read.

The concepts that MapReduce uses were being discussed at least as early as the 90s. My parallel programming module in 1995 had a section on parallelizing programs using map and reduce functions so there is enough prior art on the concepts to make any patent defense on the general concepts difficult if not impossible.

Also interesting, as I said I don't know much about it or the patents involved. The parent of my comment claimed the iPhone contained something that infringed on MapReduce patents, that was the thing I was questioning.

Google has a lot of other patents Apple would be more worried about that Map/Reduce.

I'm not aware of any use at all of Map/Reduce in the iPhone(!)

Will they come after the little guys then?

So much for "thermonuclear war"

So now we have an Apple/Google oligopoly on mobile devices and fluid UIs.

Once again, the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine proves its value.

Great, back to MAD fought out though the big three crushing small startups.

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