They haven't been able to use it to negotiate was the point because most of it is FRAND, or older cell IP.
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Apple SVP Eddy Cue Takes Stand in E-Book Trial, Admits Some E-Books Rose in Price
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They haven't been able to use it to negotiate was the point because most of it is FRAND, or older cell IP.
I'm not following you then. My point is this. Motorola has thousands of patents related to cell phones and cell technologies. Only a FRACTION of those are Frand. Now if you're saying the "important" ones to the recent case(s) aren't particularly valuable - I would agree based on the rulings.
If you're suggesting that most of Motorola's patents aren't of value or "old" - then you're 100% wrong.
Some authors have done that pretty successfully on Amazon's platform; but many tend to gravitate to larger publishers as the author will get some money up front, and advertising is covered.
Why else would Google have bought them if not for defensive reasons in patent spats? That part of the purchase has been a failure. The patents have some value within Motorola, but Samsung isn't going to give Motorola any space to survive, with or without Nexus branding. For that matter, none of the Android OEM's are going to be allowed room in the market without bloodshed.
Samsung's margins are getting hammered by overproduction at this point in time, and still marketshare is all that matters.
There is quite a bit of analysis on the web that is negative on the benefit to Google of the Motorola buy, and little positive.
I welcome any of that which you provide which supports Motorola a as good "buy", but I expect you will find plenty that refutes that.
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The iBook Author platform is similar. The Agency Model, even the 70-30 split is ideal for self published Authors, on any platform.
Self publishing is an option, but the funny thing is that self publishing is using the Agency model (at least now). You publish the book (use the tools, generate the electronic book for the 3+ systems on 3 different pieces of software, etc) you set the price then Apple or Amazon or B&N take 30% and you get 70%, ie the same thing that is not going to happen with the books from the big publishers. Amazon will likely return to selling ebooks at much lower then cost and forcing publishers to continue to lower their ebook prices while threatening to remove the print books from their store if they don't meet the new expected prices.
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Over the last two years the average price of a ebook has gone down, and the over the last two years the number of sources of ebooks has gone up by a huge margin. All that under the Agency model, without the agency model we had one supplier of ebooks and B&N trying to be a second, currently we have the big 3 (Amazon, B&N and Apple) plus lots and lots of little suppliers, that wouldnt have happened under the Amazon owns all the books model we had a few years back.
The argument is that the "most favored nation" clause required the publishers to switch the other retailers (well, switch Amazon - everyone else has been pretty happy with the agency model) to agency model. With the MFN clause struck down, Apple's retention of the agency model does nothing to force anyone else into it.
I still say the agency model most accurately fits digital goods (it's not like Amazon has to "stock up" on eBooks, taking a risk of overstocking or understocking), but it's pretty clear that Amazon will be allowed to use the "wholesale" model.
I never said whether or not it was a good buy. I merely stated that Motorola has thousands of patents relating to cell technology. I also never commented as to the timing of the purchase.
Having worked in the industry for several years back in the 90s - let me assure you - I'm not conjecturing. Motorola has THOUSANDS of patents. Only a handful were useful in the legal battles so far. That doesn't make the other patents not useful in the future - whether Google implements a fraction of them in future devices or just has them in their back pocket.
The question I'd ask is how many of them are still relevant to current cell technology (as opposed to, say, better ways of switching between the first gen of cell towers) and particularly how many relate to smartphone design (that is, data processing, not voice).
Thousands of patents covering the industry as it stood in the 90s aren't going to be that relevant moving forward (unless they were core ones which were already relevant now and would have been used in the trials).
I don't know the specific breakdown - but I was more referring to features, UI elements, etc a phone could have that Motorola has patents for.
But that's my point - assuming that Google will handle its patents in a reasonable way (i.e., no "I have this old patent that at one point sends a message from one computer to another - therefore anyone who does anything sending a message must pay us or else"), I wonder how many are recent enough to be relevant that they could provide that sort of advantage.
The easy part of the case is the MFN - to the point where, if the DoJ was only saying "Drop the MFN clause and pay a token fine", there's no way that Apple wouldn't have settled because it's one the DoJ could win on.
Nothing illegal at all about a MFN clause in a distributor's contract for a product, or even MSRP that serves essentially the same purpose but driven by the manufacturer/producer. Both are to level the sales playing field. I don't think that Apple would have given in on that either.
MFM and the Agency Model are sideshows to a collusion trial though the DOJ prefers removal of those plus financial penalties as the remediation.
