“Google is supposed to make money from Android, not its competitor Apple, but Apple could be looking at a bonanza,” Nigam Arora reports for Forbes.
“The reality is that Google may never make any money from Android,” Arora reports. “Google makes the software available free to phone manufacturers, but Apple is bound to make billions of dollars in royalties from Android.”
Arora reports, “Apple has built an enviable portfolio of smart phone patents. At present, Apple is pursuing patent litigation against Android phone vendors.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Not if Steve’s wishes are followed by Tim Cook (or unless Jobs subsequently changed his outlook on the situation; somehow, we doubt Jobs would go from “thermonuclear” to “licensing” so quickly, if ever, but, hey, you never know).
Rachel Metz, Barbara Ortutay and Jordan Robertson reported for The Associated Press on October 20, 2011, that, in his biography of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson wrote that “Jobs was livid in January 2010 when HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted many of the popular features of the iPhone. Apple sued, and Jobs told Isaacson in an expletive-laced rant that Google’s actions amounted to ‘grand theft. ‘I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,’ Jobs said. ‘I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.’”
“Jobs used an expletive to describe Android and Google Docs, Google’s Internet-based word processing program. In a subsequent meeting with Schmidt at a Palo Alto, Calif., cafe, Jobs told Schmidt that he wasn’t interested in settling the lawsuit, the book says,” Metz, Ortutay and Robertson reported. “‘I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want.’,” Rachel Metz, Barbara Ortutay and Jordan Robertson reported for The Associated Press on October 20, 2011.
Related articles:
How Steve Jobs could haunt Android: Apple unlikely to bend in growing war with Google – October 25, 2011
Will Steve Jobs’ final vendetta haunt Google? – October 23, 2011
Steve Jobs: ‘I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product; I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this’ – October 20, 2011
“Thermonuclear” is an interesting outcome if Apple could pull it off in court. One thing for sure, the lawyers – as usual – will be the ones getting rich on this one.
When Samsung is found (very likely) to be guilty of FRAND antitrust, Apple’s exclusive IP patents, will make a permanent injection enforceable. Why settle for anything less when you’re in the driver’s seat and can make the billions anyway by continuing to innovate?
Ouch! I hate permanent injections!
Permanent injections are painful and cumbersome. Ouch!
They should’ve won against Windows, it would be justice if Android pays for its theft. Stealing is one thing- artlessness is a crime.
+1
That is different. Scully gave them carte blanche in exchange for … MS Office for a couple of years.
I think Apple should collect the royalities, and go Thermonuclear via SIRI and deny google search revenue. Better yet, take the money and build a superior search engine.
I’ll bet they already have a search engine…just waiting for the best time to deploy it.
@MDN
Apple may have to negotiate royalties for low-level patents just like Samsung has to do with either Apple or consortiums. However, I agree that Apple won’t license any patents that make their hardware/software unique or give it a significant advantage over .
The only reason Samsung has to negotiate those royalty payments is because they submitted their tech (3G radio tech) as a standard. Apple has no interest is submitting it’s phone patents as a standard.
@Danno,
You are correct, regardless of Steve’s wishes. Courts will not let Apple kill off competition with patents. They will let Apple prohibit competitors from using patented technology that differentiates Apple’s products but force them to license technology that is required for competition to continue.
While Apple deserves first dibs and financial rewards for any tech it develops, it would not help anyone if that allowed Apple to eliminate all competition. Apple is better off having competition to keep its tendency to over-control in check. And Apple would not benefit from becoming a regulated monopoly ala Microsoft in the 90’s.
Apple’s best result would be to end up with 90% marketshare, plus licensing profits from remaining competition scratching out a living in Apple’s shadow. Which would be fine with me as long as Apple’s management didn’t loss their drive to compete with themselves.
(Microsoft’s biggest problem has been an unwillingness to compete with their own products, even if that means dropping the ball on great tech they have developed internally or bought.)
The thing is, Apple doesn’t have any tech like that. Pretty much every patent Apple has for the iPhone is stuff you could do another way, it’s mostly design stuff. Look at all the phones before the iPhone came out. They all worked, they all functioned. They don’t get to have Apple’s tech, just because they want it.
Sorry, but that’s exactly what patents allow you to do. The patent holder has a right to use them exclusively. Otherwise a small company holding a patent could still get clobbered by a large company forcing them to license the patents and use their bigger distribution/manufacturing/customer base to cut them out of the market or take most of the profits.
They do not have to submit to any licensing deals at all.
Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs, however, his loyalty to Jobs’ vision is likely to predict the war on Android. Instead of billions from Google royalties, it is far better to make those billions by competing with Google’s pure crap instead of Apple having to compete against it’s own IP which Google is using illegally.
Consider also, Oracle’s Larry Ellison refuses to license the Java code which Google already illegally plagiarized, insisting Google either do their own inventing or that Android must die.
Google is a sleazy ad company and exploiter of its users, now trying to expand by stealing the genius of others.
Yes this is the test case. It looks like the Judge is pushing hard for some kind of negotiated settlement in Oracle’s case. I will bet both Apple and Oracle are forced into some kind of licensing agreement, but that depends upon the judge. Permanent injunctions are going to be hard because so many Wireless networks will file briefs on behalf of Android to insure they are not operating at the mercy of an Apple monopoly. Witness Sprint that has already sacrificed profits for years in favor of Apple and that with Android running full out.
They really SHOULD license SOME of the patents, but keep the crown jewels. It would set a precedent and these other makers would have to admit that they have used Apple’s ideas.
At least that’s how it seems to a layman non-lawyer-type like me.
You ever read Atlas Shrugged? Some times being forced to license your tech is almost as bad as everyone just stealing it. It’s like saying you have no rights over this thing you created and you have to let other people use it even when you don’t want them to.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. — Douglas Adams
The most innovative company (Apple) gets robbed twice (Windows and Android). It’s tragic.
Steve Jobs gleefully insisted that “great artists steal”. What then was Jobs angry about on one hand and supporting on the other? Plagiarizing a technology or poaching a person?
Seems to me that licensing some patents could have a “thermonuclear” effect.
Consider the situation of the Android “big boys” like Samsung and HTC. If they have to retroactively pay licensing fees for ALL of the Android handsets that they have manufactured, that could put a severe economic strain on those corporations. Remember, they are much less profitable than Apple.
Yeah well it’s nice for the indivdual (SJ) to say he wants to spend their all their cash (40 bil at that time) on his vendetta, but its another for the rest of the company, investors, board etc. to agree to do that.
I think at Apple the business sense will prevail over the hurt-feelings and anger feeling SJ had on that initial reaction.
On the unveiling of the original iPhone, Steve Jobs said Apple would vigorously defend their patents… did anyone expect anything else? I imagine Steve going postal was largely the feeling of betrayal by Schmidt, who revealed himself to be nothing more than a lowly mole. Practically speaking, there would be no need for Apple to blow their cash hoard on legal costs, but just expressing a willingness to take these issues to the mat reveals much about which side feels wronged. It ain’t Google or any of the copycat hardware manufacturers, despite some of them hollering and pointing the finger at Apple once they were caught with their grubby hands in the cookie jar. Stay the course, Apple, and trust the judgement and instincts of your late leader. Don’t start making conservative decisions by committee. How you handle the legal war in the next five years is going to define Apple in the post-Steve era.
Jobs is gone and Apple needs to move on. Jobs revenge against Android isn’t good for business in the long run. You can only bully people so long before they fight back. When all these companies get tired of Apple’s bully tactics they’ll most likely get together and form a strategy to strike back.
Companies “borrow” ideas from each other all the time, including Apple!
http://gizmodo.com/5503004/steve-jobs-and-eric-schmidt-spotted-together-again-photos
That’s the link to the picture where Eric gets told off by Steve I think…lol
Looks to me like Apple has begun to lose key lawsuits in the last 24 hours.
Apple products may even be banned in Germany.
Android rules and when it kicks ass Apple is going down.