Samsung says teaming up with mobe-maker Microsoft could violate antitrust law Samsung has taken a new tack in its ongoing patent royalty spat with Microsoft, claiming that its former partnership with Redmond should be considered null and void as it could violate US antitrust law. Microsoft is suing Samsung for $6.9m in interest on royalties that it says it's owed under the terms of a 2011 business …
Isn't that a bit risky? On the one hand, they should be able to get a far lower licensing price, since Microsoft buying Nokia really does scuttle the portion of the agreement about Microsoft helping Samsung produce Windows phones. On the other hand, if the license is considered null and void it means Samsung's been using these various patents without a license, and this could lead to penalties.
>>.. if the license is considered null and void it means Samsung's been using these various patents without a license, and this could lead to penalties.
Perhaps, Samsung are now confident to prove in court that those are vapour and get them invalidated if Microsoft try challenging them.
You don't really think that all 200+ patents Microsoft is asserting against Android are vapor, do you? They've been in the smartphone game way longer than Android, and having purchased Nokia have access to a lot more now.
Just because the example trotted out about long file names is clearly ridiculous, doesn't mean they all are. Besides, as is proven over and over again, what we think about the validity of a patent doesn't matter, it is what the patent offices and the courts think about them.
Samsung is playing a dangerous game, if the contract is nullified and Microsoft sues them for using their patents with a license (that license being nullified along with the contract) they could end up paying a lot more, especially now that Nokia's patent stash would be part of the deal.
>>You don't really think that all 200+ patents Microsoft is asserting against Android are vapor, do you?
It's not me we're talking about, but Sammy, their lawyers and IP people.
If you would like to hear my opinion, they are indeed vapour. They became known thanks to the Chinese government not to Microsoft for a reason. Most of those 310 ones are extremely ridiculous. The favorite of mine besides the long filename pearl are these: #163 "Method and System for Providing Internet Shortcut Icons on the Desktop" , #156 "Distribution of Software in a Computer Network Environment", #154 "System and method for installing an application on a portable computer". As you can see this smells of prior art and/or obvious general blabbering, like crazy. Especially, the latter two. #156 filed in 94, US 6138153 A (not being mentioned to belong to MS) and US 6360364 B1 talk about so banal, boring, general shapeless things that a reader has a high risk of dislocating their jaws due to uncontrolled yawning.
It is even more ironic that a software repository/store and a universal software package system for MS Windows are either still not implemented yet or just recently arrived to a Desktop.
When B&N challenged this vapour in court, MS didn't come crushing upon them with all their lawyers' power, but muffled and muted them with quite some lucrative incentives and struck a deal instead.
>>Samsung is playing a dangerous game..
So is MS, making believe quite a few people in the emperor's clothes when he is really naked.
>>.. especially now that Nokia's patent stash would be part of the deal.
As was corrected above, Nokia is licensing those patents to MS as a part of the deal. Totally different from owning them, like what have happened with the case of Google-Moto.
>>Besides, as is proven over and over again, what we think about the validity of a patent doesn't matter, it is what the patent offices and the courts think about them.
Cannot agree more on that. That's why we get a pretty weird situation, that the real know-how communication engineering patents of Motorola, Nokia, Samsung et al are often over-bidden and over-beaten by obvious, overgeneralized vaporware or prior art patents from Microsoft and Apple.
"Perhaps, Samsung are now confident to prove in court that those are vapour and get them invalidated if Microsoft try challenging them"
This isn't about the patents validity (as people keep pointing out). Samsung are a huge corporation much larger than Microsoft and have a staggering reputation for disrespecting intellectual property and litigiousness. If they had spotted any way to invalidate the patents then that is something they could have used against the already existing agreement. What they are trying now is to find some loophole resulting from the Nokia acquisition to get them out of it. That has to do with whether MS are a competitor or not (and is a shaky argument even there). There is nothing about patent validity in this.
>>"When B&N challenged this vapour in court, MS didn't come crushing upon them with all their lawyers' power, but muffled and muted them with quite some lucrative incentives and struck a deal instead."
That's not true at all. MS did not provide Barnes and Noble with "lucractive incentives". They asked for and got a substantial settlement which involved MS getting a cheap deal on a huge bite of B&N's flagship ebook business which MS were very keen to get into. Why you think that B&N (net income of $68m and very limited experience in the technology sector and near-zero patent portfolio if any) would be able to casually invalidate MS's patents but Samsung ($30 BILLION and extensive experience with IP litigation and presence in the technology sector and large patent portfolio of its own) could not, I have no idea. But your story doesn't hold up.
Now the real risk could be for Microsoft's own house of cards, since if Samsung ends up victorious here it would create a bad legal precedent for MS
Not really as this doesn't have to do with patent validity, but a licencing agreement between Samsung and MS which they're trying to find a dubious loophole to get out of. If you think this is to do with patent validity you haven't understood the details at all.
Not really as this doesn't have to do with patent validity, but a licencing agreement between Samsung and MS which they're trying to find a dubious loophole to get out of.
I said, that if Samsung's argument is heard by the court, HTC, LG and a bunch of other companies wearing the same shoes would take the opportunity using it as well.
"dubious loophole" You do sound like a Microsoft lawyer. I think I asked it before... What are all the loopholes MS' lawyers exercise? 100% Trustworthy, absolutely legal, obviously fair and clearly certain?
>>If you think this is to do with patent validity you haven't understood the details at all.
Validity of the patents is read between the lines, a sagacious MS lawyer would sure see that. Because, why would Samsung try changing the rules of the game now? Yes, and the force of the precedent for other phone manufacturers along with the possible unpleasant repercussions it entails for MS, it did slip your clairvoyant eye, I see.
>>I said, that if Samsung's argument is heard by the court, HTC, LG and a bunch of other companies wearing the same shoes would take the opportunity using it as well."
No what you wrote is just a couple of posts up and it is this: "Samsung are now confident to prove in court that those are vapour and get them invalidated if Microsoft".
The lawsuit is not about patent validity and this will has no bearing on that. They could be patents for anything from the Wheel to Cold Fusion and it would have no bearing on the case. Samsung are trying to use a legal argument based on whether changes to MS invalidate the original licence.
>>"You do sound like a Microsoft lawyer. I think I asked it before... What are all the loopholes MS' lawyers exercise? 100% Trustworthy, absolutely legal, obviously fair and clearly certain?"
I have no idea. I'm talking about this case. I just corrected you on a few points. You seem to view this as a means to attack Microsoft based on your response to corrections being to start claiming evils elsewhere and immediate shift to absolutes. It's a football fan mentality I do not share.
"Validity of the patents is read between the lines"
Nothing in the case contests the validity of the patents. As pointed out time and again, they could have launched such a case if they had one, at any time long before now. You're now not only showing a misunderstanding of the case, but a deliberate misrepresentation. Saying "is read between the lines" is just a confession that no, there's nothing you can find in this case that pertains to validity and so you have to rely on vague and portentous statements. It's silly.
>>"why would Samsung try changing the rules of the game now"
What "rules" ? The reason the case occurs now is because it is based on MS purchasing a phone business. Hard to do that before they had actually done so.
I don't know why you would champion Samsung in this other than if you have some axe to grind against Microsoft. Samsung have a very nasty history. They're bigger than both MS and Apple and have been convicted of
Here's a nice little article on them I posted a while back, which I'll share again: Link. They have an extensive history of unpleasant behaviour including price fixing, bribery of politicians, judges and prosecutors and habitual massive patent infringement on any one they think doesn't have the resources to go up against them. (And often against those who do, if they think the patent owner might cut their losses rather than risk Samsung's legendary litigiousness).
I'm also going to re-share something else from the last time this came up. In 2006 Samsung was sued by Pioneer for infringing their patents on Plasma TV technology. A memo from a Samsung engineer used as evidence showed that they knowingly infringed on the patents. Rather than agree a licencing fee however, Samsung counter-sued and buried Pioneer under suits and appeals. Pioneer was awarded $59million in damages, but got buried in punitive legal actions from Samsung and a few years later shut down the television division, in large part because of this. Ten-thousand people who worked in that division directly or indirectly, lost their jobs.
Samsung rip off other people's work routinely. The only thing different in this case is that the target is MS which some people hate and therefore naively support Samsung (a far larger monster that makes a lot more net profit per year than Microsoft does).
Please reread my post. It was talking about the fact that the local for MS court for Western District of WA in Seattle has been pretty favorable for MS.
To all of anti-Samsung rant I can find you twice as much of anti-Microsoft rant. Does i4i XML implementation patent with $300 million in damages sound familiar to you, for example? Microsoft are not dwarf of a compared to Samsung, the only difference that MS business is or used to be mostly software that they sell. In the 90s and 00s it was a business of burning and selling as many numbers CDs as their burning machine can handle. At the same time Samsung was manufacturing some real stuff...
>>Samsung rip off other people's work routinely.
Microsoft as any other software company have ripped and still are ripping off works of others incomparably more than Samsung have ever been able to. Quite hypocritically, e.g., MS claim as invention in the inane, overgeneralized "Method and System for Providing Internet Shortcut Icons on the Desktop" while the really innovative, valuable, nontrivial ideas of Internet, tcp/ip, html/xhtml, Operating Systems, Desktop were ripped off from the work of others.
1) Which set of Lawyers have the biggest balls?
Needed to 'big' this up in court. Truth is a mere hindurance as the SCO vs IBM saga taught us.
2) Who has the deepest pockets to pay for a case that will probably last the rest of the decade
My guess (sadly) is that it is a winner for Microsoft especially after Samsung's latest results.
Don't forget that Samsung vs Apple still hasn't been resolved or at least no damages have yet been paid.
Even if they are due royalty for patents, it's likely that if there had been proper due diligence at the start the MS Patents wouldn't exist. The Patent on Long File names on FAT for example is nuts. Only ways of doing it should be copyright. It's not the kind of idea that should ever get patent protection.
It's baffling that everyone didn't get together and oppose MS at the start. After all, a lot of them have real inventions, not just a fairly trivial idea that can be implemented in Software and should only have copyright protection for implementation, which is the case on most MS patents allegedly infringed.
There are over 200 of them, they probably aren't all as bad as the long file name patent. Now that they've acquired Nokia, they have way more patents than that. You'd have to be some sort of wild eyed fanboy to think Nokia didn't hold any patents relevant to cell phones...
The majority are abstract ideas, which are non-patentable (according to US patent law). Then you have the, in my opnion, most ridiculous patent granted which for once, is for something very specific. They managed to patent Java class files used by a JVM. Since a JVM ships with class files and they did not invent the JVM, there has to be prior art invalidating said patent.
Sorry if I disappointed the down voter, but we are talking about the company that invented the knife the baby strategy.
..........in relation to that company they are being extremely cheeky here. They are worried that they might be accused of cartel activity? Hello?! This from the company that, not once but twice, has been caught with other TV manufacturers in Europe operating a, yes believe or not, a cartel in TV manufacture and pricing? Samsung want out of their deal with Redmond (for whatever reason, valid or otherwise) and they are just trying it on to achieve that aim. The fact that the other party in this is MicroDollarDemonBastardSoft (as MS is so affectionately known amongst the Cognoscenti here at Vulture Central) is neither here nor there.
Whilst I applaud your non-standard logic suggesting Sammy to not bother breaking the antitrust law since they have been found doing it before, I'd not expect Samsung to share your enthusiasm though. Moreover, in the same manner, why not look forward to Microsoft's third time teasing the EU antitrust watchdog with the lack of alternative browsers choice on Windows?
IIRC Samsung stopped selling Windows laptops here in Europe (we have one in the office - not bad kit). Maybe the rest of the world too (or soon).
Perhaps they have decided to dump everything MS associated and figure that taking some pocket change "in advance" by failing to pay their contractual dues to MS is the right way to exit.
Stupider strategies have existed in the past.
Remember, Samsung is a multiply convicted cartel operator and IP infringer (we can exclude Apple in the list for to save trolling) with a habit of bleeding competitors dry in court. This play from Samsung is not exactly an unnatural act for them.
>>Remember, Samsung is a multiply convicted cartel operator and IP infringer (we can exclude Apple in the list for to save trolling) with a habit of bleeding competitors dry in court.
The fact that both Microsoft and Apple are likewise multiply convicted monopolistic cartels and IP infringers on a much larger scale, capable to abuse the corrupted patent system and courts with their ridiculous, inane patents -- should also not be conveniently forgotten, whatever is suggested by their respected fans.
...obviously the matter of $6.9m here is either an interesting sideshow for what's going to happen or the tip of the iceberg of something else.
Both firms have been caught with their pants down multiple times, neither of them are saints no matter how the various fanbois are presenting them.
Feels a bit like the start of Game of Thrones where you think go Ned Stark and an hour later he's beheaded and you thinking what the fuck just happened? Does Sammy get a slap on the wrists for not paying the interest and MS gets a kick in the stones by the regulators for trying to engage another firm in some sort of collusion??? So many possibilities considering the dirty laundry lists both firms have.
Keep an eye out for whoring dwarfs with penchants for prostitutes.... or does that translate to the lawyers???
Should fill the front page for a while anyway... and who thought 2015 was going to be boring!
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