“Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker, began arguing its U.S. trade case that Android- based smartphones made by Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. use technology derived from Microsoft inventions,” Susan Decker reports for Bloomberg.
MacDailyNews Take: If Microsoft is “the world’s largest software maker,” what’s Apple?
“In a trial that began today before the International Trade Commission in Washington, Microsoft accused Motorola Mobility of infringing seven of its patents and requested a halt to imports of certain Motorola phones. The ITC has the power to stop imports of products that violate U.S. patent rights,” Decker reports. “‘We have a responsibility to our employees, customers, partners and shareholders to safeguard our intellectual property,’ David Howard, Microsoft’s corporate vice president and deputy general counsel for litigation, said in an e-mail. ‘Motorola is infringing our patents and we are confident that the ITC will rule in our favor.'”
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Decker reports, “Cases brought by Microsoft and Cupertino, California-based Apple are targeting devices that run on Android. Microsoft, which contends all Android devices use its technology, also has a case against Barnes & Noble Inc., targeting the Nook reader… Microsoft has asked the agency to block imports of Motorola phones including the Droid 2, Droid X, Cliq XT, Devour, Backflip and Charm. Administrative Law Judge Theodore Essex is scheduled to release his findings in the case Nov. 4, and the commission has a target to complete its investigation by March 5, according to information on the agency’s website.”
Read more in the full article here.
Let me get this straight now: are we now supposed to root for Microsoft???!!!
Cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria!
“It’s true. This man has no d ick.”
“Well that’s what I heard!”
Who ya gonna call?
You’re supposed to root for Ballmer and his right nut. The left one stands above the fray.
Android Handset makers seem to get squeezed into a import ban from two sides now.
From one side it’s Apple, who seeks a perma-ban on everything Android; on the other side we have Microsoft trying either to bully them into paying royalties for Android and force them over to WinMo, or if that fails, ban them as well.
Doesn’t look good for the Android camp now does it?
Somehow a bit unfair when old fierce competitors band together sometime to blast the rising competition; but if you just cherry pick inventions that others have made with lots of time and money, you get what’s commin’ to ya.
In my opinion with Microsoft on the anti-Droid force, success against Google’s StolenButOpen OS now doubled.
Fair? You can’t sell massive numbers of products with linux with a GUI and not expect to get sued. There was just no test case before android because linux never gained marketshare. Just because moto has some radio/baseband and cellphone specific FRAND patents doesn’t mean they suddenly have free reign to enter the computer industry with a stolen OS.
True. This needs show once and for all that open source stuff needs to stay in the DIY realm, and nobody should sell it even if it’s just a minor side feature.
The Linux quys are very much biting their tongues now in this case and silently curse Google for what they are doing with Android (Adding DRM, locking it down, not sharing source, etc). They are only officially rooting for Google because now Linux finally gets some attention/market share.
But i wonder how the case would be if it went like this:
Toshiba, Dell, Acer and Lenovo preload VLC, or XBMC on their Laptops and sell the mas usual.
Would WinDVD, Apple or Microsoft (Quicktime & WMP) sue them for selling PCs that infringe some Video Patents?
I think that if pre-installed linux machines with a GUI ever gained marketshare they would be sued by Apple and MS.
Google is giving away Android, so they haven’t been sued. Google/Motorola actually makes Android as a whole more vulnerable, because now Google is selling Android for the first time.
DIY realm?
Linux is big business in this day and age!
The vast majority of Servers on the planet are running Linux and Red Hat is looking to become the first Open Source company with a billion dollars in sales from Linux.
If you are talking about just the desktop then yes the numbers are low but everywhere else where Linux has an installed base (Servers, embedded and mobile) it is a large platform.
In the grand scheme of things I hope no company (MS, Apple, Oracle etc. etc) is ever able to destroy Linux via Patents or court actions.
That would be a major loss to consumer freedom in the long run and would hamper the ability of many companies to be able to compete in a number of markets without being forced/controlled by whatever corporation owned the OS everyone was using.
Your right, it has great application in the server and embedded space.
I think you are dead wrong about the consumer space. In that space it has and likely shall remain a DIY geek project.
It IS NOT a consumer product, no consumer grade software, too many competing desktops, no unified gui, too many branches/flavors. Thats the whole point of IOS. The average consumer doesn’t want to spend minutes, let alone hours tweaking and hacking at the os. They do not want to read man pages to use a text editor. They want to surf the net, use email, play games and manage their media collection. They see a computer as a tool, a means to an end.
This is not about freedom for them, not in the sense you assert. They want to be free from geekyness, they do not want to be IT-Pros. To them the system is largely insignificant, it’s the software and ease of use they care about. It is exactly why IOS is winning and will rule the day.
I hope Linux is destroyed as a commercial product, because it seems to me that twisting it into being a commercial product has not resulted in good things for it. i.e., Google destroyed its security, embroiled it in a nuclear patent-storm, and is even starting to violate the GPL.
“StolenButOpen”
StolenNotOpen you mean?
“They ranked these projects in an “open governance index” based on the percentage of points that they received. Google’s Android mobile operating system ranked the lowest, with only 23 percent.” ” Android was the only project in the study that scored less than 58 percent.”
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/08/study-android-is-least-open-of-open-source-mobile-platforms.ars
MDN: If Microsoft is “the world’s largest software maker,” what’s Apple?
Who cares? – just let it play out. MS is doing the dirty-work for Apple – for free. This is rich!
i don’t biy for a moment that Linux infringes on anything MS owns personally.
I have not seen the patents in question on MS’s side however
I also doubt that Microsoft has any real case against Linux, else they’d have moved on it before now.
Microsoft’s case against Android, however, seems a lot clearer, and they are moving on it.
The point of licensing or suing is to make money and protect your marketshare. Before android, linux was never a threat to Apple or MS because of it’s minuscule marketshare.
Command line linux wasn’t even invented until 1991 after Apple had already patented the GUI with an object oriented interface.
X-windows, by MIT in 1984 came after the Apple had already released the LISA in 1983.
Linux has long been a big threat to MS, just not on the desktop.
On the Server side Linux IS the main competition to anyone and everyone.
Sun Micro didn’t sell out to Oracle because they were selling a lot of Sparc servers. Linux absolutely decimated their sales.
MS loves to launch FUD campaigns that try and show Windows Server as a more secure server OS because as much as Windows Server is growing, Linux is growing faster.
When Linux took off in the enterprise it was a game changer.
MDN likes to post articles about how the iPad is putting companies out of business in the ‘post-pc’ era… well that is exactly what Linux did to Commercial UNIX vendors the world over.
MS and Apple are scared of Linux in the mobile arena. I can’t say that I blame them, if not Android, another Linux based OS on a mobile device might be right around the corner.
…”World’s largest software maker”… could be true if you consider “largest” as in “bloatiest” or “balmiest” … it’s all round off error!
Erm…
Apple = the worlds best software maker…
Is this much obviously only to myself???
Apple & Microsoft vs Google – …the enemy of my enemy is my friend 😉
“Apple & Microsoft vs Google – …the enemy of my enemy is my friend ”
Sic em Microsoft!