Rockstar swells Spherix patent portfolio with 100 new licenses

The voice and data industries could find themselves fielding a new bunch of sue-balls, with patent management outfit Rockstar putting more than 100 patents in the hands of Spherix. Readers will remember that Rockstar was backed by Apple, BlackBerry, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, and Sony to scoop up a bunch of patents that came …

[Turtle]

Lawsuits And Patent Assertions

"Readers will remember that Rockstar was backed by Apple, BlackBerry, EMC, Ericsson, Microsoft, and Sony to scoop up a bunch of patents that came onto the market when Nortel collapsed. It's most famous tangle so far under its own name is with Google over Android patents, with Google asking for the lawsuit to be dismissed"

The story is not fully intelligible without pointing out that Google was given the opportunity to join the Rockstar consortium and refused, saying that being part-owner of the patents would prevent them from using the patents to sue the other part-owners. I.e. Google is getting sued over these patents by other parties because they wanted to use these patents to sue those other parties!

So those patents were going to figure in a lawsuit, in one case with Google asserting them against the members of the Rockstar consortium, and in the other case, with the members of the Rockstar consortium asserting them against Google. An outcome with all the parties as part-owners of the Nortel patents and no lawsuits resulting, was, apparently, unacceptable to Google.

Well that's Google.

[Ian Easson]

Your assertion in this post that the recent conflict between Rockstar and Google has anything to do with Android is totally, absolutely, 100% false. You think you would have the integrity to check the facts before publishing this post, instead of re-echoing what the echo chamber says.

The patents involved all have to do with search, not Android.

Here's a reference:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/180685266/13-10-31-Rockstar-Patent-Complaint-Against-Google

[ratfox]

Only half correct

At the same time Google was attacked over search, Android manufacturers were attacked over Android. This can easily be considered as a general attack on Google, with the manufacturers as collateral damage in the fight to diminish Google's clout from Android.

[Anonymous Coward]

Pox on both of their families

What google would have done (or not) is now in the past.

What is important is that the portfolio is clearly being used to selectively sabotage competition and distort the market. It is _NOT_ being used and there is no intention of it being used to "monetize innovation" which is the primary purpose of a patent. FTC and EC CC had specific concerns regarding that when allowing for the patents to be sold in the first place so they should actually step in.

In addition to that, even if the FTC steps in the puppeteers driving Rockstar will smile and move on. While this clearly is becoming a competition matter there is no easy way to apply competition law.

This also shows that the current proposal for a US patent reform does not go far enough. It only requests that the original owners are named. It does not actually "relay damage" to the "sponsors" in the case of well organized patent privateering operations (as it should).

[TheWeenie]

Perhaps it's just me but all I can muster is a shrug and a "here we go again".

More millions of $/£/€ into the pockets of lawyers. Yawn.

[g e]

Trolls outsourcing trollery to trolls

Quality. Structured trolling.

[Robert Carnegie]

What-ix?

This appears to be the only Register entry that mentions Spherix. Wikipedia doesn't have an article on Spherix, but claims that it was founded by a NASA engineer who believes that life was discovered on Mars and I suppose he thinks it was hushed up. Trying to find out more about Spherix from the Wikipedia article leads to a mystery PDF downloading at me, dated last September. What the hell is going on here?

Is Spherix a virus?