geeteam Posted December 25, 2013 Share Posted December 25, 2013 Apple led Rockstar is a group of tech companies seeking to protect a portfolio of patents that it jointly purchased last year from defunct Canadian tech giant BlackBerry Nortel. On Tuesday, Google announced that it is taking Rockstar to court in an attempt to stop litigation which it says has "placed a cloud on Google’s Android platform," in particular, on Google's Nexus range of devices. Google is trying to save many companies that use the open source Android OS, such as Asus, HTC, Huawei, Pantech, Samsung, LG and ZTE, from having to waste precious financial resources and time, defending themselves in courtrooms. The companies that make up Rockstar include Android rivals such as Apple, BlackBerry and Microsoft. In 2012, Rockstar spent $4.5 billion ($2.5 billion came from Apple) to buy a number of patents owned by Nortel. Rockstar has no operations and employs Canadian engineers whose sole job is to scour the operations of other companies, looking for something that might infringe on its IP portfolio. Google's filing claims that the patent troll has focused on 100 companies and Rockstar's CEO claims that Facebook, LinkedIn and almost every major tech company is infringing on the patents that it has purchased from Nortel. Google does not relish the idea of having to spend time and money defending itself and its customers. It is asking the court to rule that the "the Nexus 5, Nexus 7, or Nexus 10 devices sold by Google, directly or indirectly" do not infringe on the seven patents owned by Rockstar and MobileStar. The latter is a shell company that apparently was created to help Rockstar win in court. The patents owned by Rockstar deal with basic smartphone functions such as "mobile hotspot functionality," and "Messaging and Notification." Still, Rockstar has not been successful trying to license the patents it purchased and now the consortium faces the prospects of losing the $4.5 billion investment made by its members. Unless, of course, it can generate income the good old American way, by suing for it. But precedent might not be on Google's side. Early this year, a court ruled that Cisco could not sue to prevent its router customers from litigation. Google could find the courts unwilling to allow it to protect its customers from the patent troll. Rockstar is getting desperate. No one, not even Apple, is happy with having to write off a multi-billion dollar investment. It is this desperation that has Google concerned about the depths that its rivals will go to in order to see some sort of return on the purchase of the Nortel patents. Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ambrocious Posted December 25, 2013 Share Posted December 25, 2013 (edited) Google is trying to save many companies that use the open source Android OS, such as Asus, HTC, Huawei, Pantech, Samsung, LG and ZTE, from having to waste precious financial resources and time, defending themselves in courtrooms. It's so good to see that Google has become quite the pollite dominatrix as of late. They are practically screaming out that they would win in court NO MATTER WHAT. Can you say Kangaroo court? Edited December 25, 2013 by Ambrocious Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnakeMasteR Posted December 25, 2013 Share Posted December 25, 2013 My first thought on the title: Goodbye GTA V for PC. :troll: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffi Posted December 25, 2013 Share Posted December 25, 2013 Google is trying to save many companies that use the open source Android OS, such as Asus, HTC, Huawei, Pantech, Samsung, LG and ZTE, from having to waste precious financial resources and time, defending themselves in courtrooms. It's so good to see that Google has become quite the pollite dominatrix as of late. They are practically screaming out that they would win in court NO MATTER WHAT. Can you say Kangaroo court? Or google has a good understanding on how android specifically works around those patents or know how it can invalidate them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janedoe Posted December 28, 2013 Share Posted December 28, 2013 (edited) Or google has a good understanding on how android specifically works around those patents or know how it can invalidate themIf Google could invalidate them that easily it wouldn't have bothered bidding billions of dollars for Nortel's patent portfolio in the first place, then got pi**ed that Rockstar outbid it. Edited December 28, 2013 by janedoe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffi Posted December 29, 2013 Share Posted December 29, 2013 Or google has a good understanding on how android specifically works around those patents or know how it can invalidate themIf Google could invalidate them that easily it wouldn't have bothered bidding billions of dollars for Nortel's patent portfolio in the first place, then got pi**ed that Rockstar outbid it.These patent threats are harmful for Android, especially for smaller oems, the ones these trolls seem to go after first and Google tried to preventively disarm that threat Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janedoe Posted December 29, 2013 Share Posted December 29, 2013 (edited) These patent threats are harmful for Android, especially for smaller oems, the ones these trolls seem to go after first and Google tried to preventively disarm that threat Google could have got the patents, and for a lot cheaper too, if it hadn't acted so high and mighty and accepted Microsoft's proposal to jointly bid for them. BTW, the very fact that these patents are not owned by Google but known to be "harmful" for Android indicates how Google infringed on them en masse. If it hadn't done so in the first place it needn't have bothered with them at all. Let's not even go into the whole Java ripoff mess that Google is currently battling in the courts with Oracle. Suffice it to say that they have used others' IP without any shame and now are retroactively trying to wrest control of the same. Edited December 29, 2013 by janedoe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ffi Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 These patent threats are harmful for Android, especially for smaller oems, the ones these trolls seem to go after first and Google tried to preventively disarm that threat Google could have got the patents, and for a lot cheaper too, if it hadn't acted so high and mighty and accepted Microsoft's proposal to jointly bid for them. BTW, the very fact that these patents are not owned by Google but known to be "harmful" for Android indicates how Google infringed on them en masse. If it hadn't done so in the first place it needn't have bothered with them at all. Let's not even go into the whole Java ripoff mess that Google is currently battling in the courts with Oracle. Suffice it to say that they have used others' IP without any shame and now are retroactively trying to wrest control of the same. Google couldn't buy them jointly with android adversaries or android oems because it would have protected google but not oems Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
janedoe Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 (edited) Google couldn't buy them jointly with android adversaries or android oems because it would have protected google but not oemsYou're saying that if Google and MS jointly owned the Nortel patents, MS could still sue the OEMs without their joint-owner Google's assent? I'm not a lawyer, but I don't see how this makes sense or would even hold up in court. Edited December 30, 2013 by janedoe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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