Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,194
30,136



Back in 2011, Apple teamed up with Ericsson, Microsoft, BlackBerry, and Sony to form a consortium to bid on a collection of 6,000 patents and patent applications from Nortel, a communications company that went bankrupt in 2009.

The team of companies, called the "Rockstar consortium" paid a total of $4.5 billion for the patents following a bidding war with Google and said at the time that the consortium would implement plans to "pursue licensing agreements with companies that are harnessing its intellectual property."

nortel_logo1.jpg
Today, Reuters is reporting that the consortium filed suit in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Texas against Google, Samsung, HTC, Huawei, and others for infringement on those patents. Google has been accused of infringing on seven of the patents. "Despite losing in its attempt to acquire the patents-in-suit at auction, Google has infringed and continues to infringe," the lawsuit reads.

The patents, US 6,098,065, 7,236,969, 7,469,245, 7,672,970, 7,895,178, 7,895,183 and 7,933,883, appear to be related to generating search results, serving advertisements based on search results, and creating user profiles.
This invention relates to an advertisement machine which provides advertisements to a user searching for desired information within a data network. The machine receives, from a user, a search request including a search argument corresponding to the desired information and searches, based upon the received search argument, a first database having data network related information to generate search results.
Rockstar is seeking damages from Google, and claims that Google's patent infringement is willful.

Article Link: Apple/Microsoft 'Rockstar Consortium' Sues Google, Others Over Nortel Patents
 

macrumors12345

Suspended
Mar 1, 2003
410
0
No big surprise

You don't pay billions for patents if you don't plan to use them. The parties must not have been able to find an agreeable settlement.

Ironically, GOOG was offered the chance to be part of the "Rockstar Consortium", but declined to do so because it would have prevented them from offensively using the patents against AAPL, MSFT, and BB[R]Y. They literally have no one to blame but themselves here.

Edit: Technically they were invited to join MSFT and AAPL in the Novell patent consortium. We don't know for sure whether or not they were invited to join the Nortel patent consortium (though it seems very unlikely they would join given they had just turned down the Novell invitation); we only know that they put in their own multi-billion dollar bid to gain the Nortel patents as an offensive weapon.
 
Last edited:

mdriftmeyer

macrumors 68040
Feb 2, 2004
3,788
1,898
Pacific Northwest
Back in 2011, Apple teamed up with Ericsson, Microsoft, BlackBerry, and Sony to form a consortium to bid on a collection of 6,000 patents and patent applications from Nortel , a communications company that went bankrupt in 2009.

Who wrote this?

Talk about way off. Try, ``...from Nortel Networks, a former Network Communications Giant ...

FWIW: Please read up on history before writing such cover.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nortel_Networks

You don't go from an energy company born from Bell Canada to a giant Networking Conglomerate that acquired Bay Area Networks to end up being characterized as ``a communications company....'' like a slow drip faucet with such a valuable IP Portfolio.
 

polbit

macrumors 6502a
Sep 18, 2002
525
649
South Carolina
At this rate, in 10 years all the major players will be spending much more on buying, defending and using patents than on actual product R&D and production. To say this is ludicrous is an understatement.
 

mallwitt

macrumors member
Oct 16, 2011
30
0
Minneapolis, MN
Patents need a use it or lose it to the public domain time limit. Produce a product and put it on the market, license it to someone who does, or lose it when you can't make a go of it. This entire thing is becoming insane, and is undermining the idea that Patents exist to protect an invention from being infringed on to incentive development and production and are increasingly being used as instruments to suppress development and extort concessions from rivals that can't be accomplished via competition within the marketplace.
 

CindyRed

macrumors member
May 26, 2011
77
0
Who wrote this?

Talk about way off. Try, ``...from Nortel Networks, a former Network Communications Giant ...

FWIW: Please read up on history before writing such cover.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nortel_Networks

You don't go from an energy company born from Bell Canada to a giant Networking Conglomerate that acquired Bay Area Networks to end up being characterized as ``a communications company....'' like a slow drip faucet with such a valuable IP Portfolio.

"Company" is fine. It's ambiguous and passive. Calling a company a "giant" insinuates it's too large to fail, which obviously wasn't the case. As big as it once was, it was nothing more than a blip near the end of its existence.

Much the same as Blackberry, an enormous player in telecom technologies worth 30b - 45b to a company barely treading water worth less than 5b.

Sure, maybe calling Nortel a "former telecom giant" may have been more suitable, but faulting a blogger for calling a mole hill a mole hill when you remember it as a mountain is silly.

Besides, it was just a corporation that was poorly managed, not a tragic national hero.
 

Solomani

macrumors 601
Sep 25, 2012
4,785
10,477
Slapfish, North Carolina
It's like the first Patent World War, where all the major tech players are involved and taking one side or the other. Who's the Axis? Who's the Allies? The Warsaw Pact versus NATO Alliance. Where's the earth-shattering kaboom?
 

Rocco83

macrumors 6502
Jul 3, 2011
283
402
Rockstar Games should sue the Rockstar Conglomerate for going by Rockstar. Obviously infringing on their name...

----------

...Calling a company a "giant" insinuates it's too large to fail...

Must have missed that in business school. Who made that the definition? Some mortgage companies were giants, they failed. Could say the same for companies in the auto industry that needed nailed out. Giants fall, ask David. :p
 

duffman9000

macrumors 68020
Sep 7, 2003
2,327
8,045
Deep in the Depths of CA
You don't pay billions for patents if you don't plan to use them. The parties must not have been able to find an agreeable settlement.

Ironically, GOOG was offered the chance to be part of the "Rockstar Consortium", but declined to do so because it would have prevented them from offensively using the patents against AAPL, MSFT, and BBY. They literally have no one to blame but themselves here.

Instead of placing funny bids maybe Google should have let the adults do the negotiations.
 

lolkthxbai

macrumors 65816
May 7, 2011
1,426
489
Who wrote this?

Talk about way off. Try, ``...from Nortel Networks, a former Network Communications Giant ...

FWIW: Please read up on history before writing such cover.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nortel_Networks

You don't go from an energy company born from Bell Canada to a giant Networking Conglomerate that acquired Bay Area Networks to end up being characterized as ``a communications company....'' like a slow drip faucet with such a valuable IP Portfolio.

Mike Zafirovski? Is that you?
 

Tknull

macrumors regular
Jun 24, 2011
199
0
San Diego
Who wrote this?

Talk about way off. Try, ``...from Nortel Networks, a former Network Communications Giant ...

FWIW: Please read up on history before writing such cover.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nortel_Networks

You don't go from an energy company born from Bell Canada to a giant Networking Conglomerate that acquired Bay Area Networks to end up being characterized as ``a communications company....'' like a slow drip faucet with such a valuable IP Portfolio.

Does adding the work "Network" in front of Communications, or "Giant".... really change the article, or its contents, in any way whatsoever?
 

springsup

macrumors 65816
Feb 14, 2013
1,216
1,198
"Company" is fine. It's ambiguous and passive. Calling a company a "giant" insinuates it's too large to fail, which obviously wasn't the case. As big as it once was, it was nothing more than a blip near the end of its existence.

Much the same as Blackberry, an enormous player in telecom technologies worth 30b - 45b to a company barely treading water worth less than 5b.

Sure, maybe calling Nortel a "former telecom giant" may have been more suitable, but faulting a blogger for calling a mole hill a mole hill when you remember it as a mountain is silly.

Besides, it was just a corporation that was poorly managed, not a tragic national hero.

Nothing is too big to fail.

The whole company/giant thing is a semantic debate I don't really care about. What would be interesting is to see what the ROI is from these Nortel patents vs. the pittance Google is getting from Motorola (if anything, given that Moto are still making billion-dollar losses).
 

Tknull

macrumors regular
Jun 24, 2011
199
0
San Diego
Rockstar Games should sue the Rockstar Conglomerate for going by Rockstar. Obviously infringing on their name...

----------



Must have missed that in business school. Who made that the definition? Some mortgage companies were giants, they failed. Could say the same for companies in the auto industry that needed nailed out. Giants fall, ask David. :p

Who cares? Add the word Giant. Re-read the article. Does it change a thing?

----------

Would buying Blackberry solve the problem for Google?

Awesome point! As part of the consortium, Blackberry must have had use of the patents. Unless the agreement specified otherwise, if Google were to buy them you would think that they would then have the right to use them...
 

springsup

macrumors 65816
Feb 14, 2013
1,216
1,198
Would buying Blackberry solve the problem for Google?

I can't think of an acquisition Google could make that would solve its current IP issues. They won't get ultimate leverage over Apple or Microsoft by SEPs, and those companies are extremely careful about licensing proprietary technology they use as well as patenting new technologies.

Google didn't plan this whole 'Android' game through. A smarter move would have been to work on a cross-licensing deal with Apple while they were still close, and then reveal Android.

Also, there's no way BlackBerry has any decent patents. They would have been snapped up by now. Instead we're hearing of competitors like Apple trying to steal any talented employees they still have.

EDIT: Ah, okay, I see what you're getting at. I don't think so; Apple has a 58% stake in the consortium and had a bunch of patents transferred to its own ownership.
 

longofest

Editor emeritus
Jul 10, 2003
2,924
1,682
Falls Church, VA
I understand and can argue for purchasing patents for defensive purposes (defending against lawsuits), but to purchase patents just to then attack other companies with them when you yourself have done none of the innovative work is kinda dumb.
 

springsup

macrumors 65816
Feb 14, 2013
1,216
1,198
I understand and can argue for purchasing patents for defensive purposes (defending against lawsuits), but to purchase patents just to then attack other companies with them when you yourself have done none of the innovative work is kinda dumb.

Yeah, I understand what you're saying (and honestly I agree with it - I think patents give too much protection).

On the other hand, the consortium paid Nortel $4.5Bn for those inventions because Nortel was bankrupt and had to be liquidated. Nortel couldn't afford to profit from those inventions itself, because it's a lengthy and risky process. They took an up-front payment instead and let the new owners see which inventions could be licensed.
 

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,537
1,645
Redondo Beach, California
I don't like patents that basically say "do what people have been doing for 10,000 years but use a computer"

For example when the car was invented it as right to patent car parts and car engine designs and so on. But not "Use car for shopping trips." "use car to get to work", "set inside car if raining to stay dry"

This patent is just "when person expresses interest in X they and sell hime things related to X." It is a sales trick from ages ago likely invented before money. But now we are using a computer.

The make it sound like some technical invention but it's just that you hear some one ak about cats so maybe we try and sell hime cat food. It shouldn't be patentable.

Patents should be for true inventions not doing the same old thing with a new gadget.
 

xVeinx

macrumors 6502
Oct 9, 2006
361
0
California
This is Microsoft, Apple, and Blackberry looking to stop Google's freeware OS from completely taking over. Cheap hardware, a decent user experience, and the occasional popular phone can drive a lot of people out of business using a combination approach and cooperation with companies looking to make next to no margins. The only winner, apart from Samsung to some degree, is Google.
 

drsox

macrumors 68000
Apr 29, 2011
1,697
197
Xhystos
I don't like patents that basically say "do what people have been doing for 10,000 years but use a computer"

For example when the car was invented it as right to patent car parts and car engine designs and so on. But not "Use car for shopping trips." "use car to get to work", "set inside car if raining to stay dry"

This patent is just "when person expresses interest in X they and sell hime things related to X." It is a sales trick from ages ago likely invented before money. But now we are using a computer.

The make it sound like some technical invention but it's just that you hear some one ak about cats so maybe we try and sell hime cat food. It shouldn't be patentable.

Patents should be for true inventions not doing the same old thing with a new gadget.

How about patenting "learning to spell" :D
 

Sy7ygy

Suspended
Nov 16, 2012
343
168
This is Microsoft, Apple, and Blackberry looking to stop Google's freeware OS from completely taking over. Cheap hardware, a decent user experience, and the occasional popular phone can drive a lot of people out of business using a combination approach and cooperation with companies looking to make next to no margins. The only winner, apart from Samsung to some degree, is Google.

No, this is a group of people trying to stop an advertising, monopolistic giant.

Google is _NOT_ a good company; they have made all of their money on selling Metadata about personal people to other corporations & supporting ultra-corrupt firms such as Samsung.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.