Apple and Google/Motorola Agree to Settle Patent Litigation, Work Together on Patent Reform

[Oletros]

Because Tizen copied from Android

What the heck has copied Tizen from Android? Do you really know anything about Tizen history and its precedents?

No java. Java is eighties era PC tech, old crap not particularly suitable for mobile.

Clearly, Android shows that you're wrong

Also Google just lost big from Oracle, they will have to play by Oracle's rules for java soon.

Google has not lost anything yet

This will make Android development slower and more cumbersome.

Precog too much about the outcome of the fair use trial and, if lost, the damages trial?

With Chrome OS Google can be their own boss.So? Chrome OS isn't ready yet, they can't let it die just yet.But am I wrong?
We'll see.

Yes, we'll see.

Just let's wait if Samsung releases any Tizen smartphone in USA or Europe this year

 

[fermat-au]

Lastly, Google didn't overpay for Motorola. You do know they got nearly all that cash back by splitting up the set top box portion and the sale to Lenovo. Not like they spent 3 billion on a headphone company. Wink wink

or the $4.5 billion paid by the Rockstar Consortium (largely Apple) for patents largely to use against Google

 

[SlCKB0Y]

I wonder how long before google sues Samsung. Samsung is going Tizen, and given Samsung's corporate culture, there's probably a lot of Android in there.

They might not bother though, Android was always just a stopgap, they needed something fast. Android will be the new Symbian, not just mostly, like now, but all the way. Google has something better, it's called Chrome OS.

The Chrome OS guy is now in charge of Android.

Flagship class smartphones will be iOS, Tizen or Chrome OS. Or maybe Windows.

Will take a while before we get there though.

What a staggeringly uninformed post....

 

[WylyQuimby]

One gets the impression that most people here believe Apple started this series of lawsuits, but it was in fact Motorola.

 

[Yojimbo007]

This is one of the best things that can happen, if played out right !?

 

[Cyborg21]

What tech has Google copied from Apple? Because tech usually equates to hardware. Software wise, if that is what you are referring to, i can name dozens of features Apple has copied directly from Google, Blackberry and Windows phone.

A lot, have you seen Android before iPhone and Android after iPhone? Also who wanted Samsung to copy and bash Apple. Who supported Samsung?

 

[draugminaion]

What a staggeringly uninformed post....

I'm obviously beyond hope. But maybe you could explain how I'm wrong for the other people. That would be great. Fun even, maybe.

So, you up to it?

 

[draugminaion]

Clearly, Android shows that you're wrong

Nope, it shows I'm right. Look at iOS an Android device battery specs. Android needs 50% more power to do the same amount of work.

Google has not lost anything yet

Didn't someone mention wishful thinking just now?

Precog too much about the outcome of the fair use trial and, if lost, the damages trial?




Yes, we'll see.

Just let's wait if Samsung releases any Tizen smartphone in USA or Europe this year

Feels way to soon for me. Next year. Maybe. And Samsung being Samsung, they will continue to use Android long after that for their AndroidIsTheNewSymbian phones, what Samsung calls "Carrier friendly, good enough" phones, that's where the volume is.

 

[Oletros]

Nope, it shows I'm right. Look at iOS an Android device battery specs. Android needs 50% more power to do the same amount of work.Didn't someone mention wishful thinking just now?Feels way to soon for me. Next year. Maybe. And Samsung being Samsung, they will continue to use Android long after that for their AndroidIsTheNewSymbian phones, what Samsung calls "Carrier friendly, good enough" phones, that's where the volume is.

It is clear that you're just repeating the same nonsense that people that doesn't like nor Android nor Samsung repeats without a clue about what reality is.

Have a nice day and we will see

 

[Mike MA]

Suffered heavily under that trial, one year without push mail service on all iOS devices was a pain.

 

[Piggie]

Nope, it shows I'm right. Look at iOS an Android device battery specs. Android needs 50% more power to do the same amount of work.

Hang on moment there.

You are saying Android needs 50% more battery to run compared to an iPhone.

But there are Android phones out there just as thin as an iPhone. But you are saying they need 50% more battery power?

By that same logic then, Apple could, without making the iPhone any larger use such a battery and have 50% more power.

So why don't they?

 

[draugminaion]

Hang on moment there.

You are saying Android needs 50% more battery to run compared to an iPhone.

But there are Android phones out there just as thin as an iPhone. But you are saying they need 50% more battery power?

By that same logic then, Apple could, without making the iPhone any larger use such a battery and have 50% more power.

So why don't they?

Ok let's see.
If we take video playback as representative of general workload:
The Samsung Galaxy S5 has a 2800 mAh battery, which is good for 11 hours of video playback.

The iPhone 5S has a 1570 mAh battery that is good for 10 hours of video playback.

So, an iPhone would get 16 hours of video playback with the Galaxy S5 battery.
60% more work from the same power.

The Galaxy S5 is a lot larger than the iPhone, not thicker but taller and wider. It has to be because it needs a bigger battery. Do you know any iPhone sized Android phones that do well? The Galaxy Mini seems to be a dud for example.

So, if Apple ends up doing a big screen phone, it might well have really nice battery life.

 

[KPOM]

How much was Motorola worth in your expert opinion?

Less than what they paid for it. While it wasn't as dramatic as the difference between the $12.9 billion they paid for it and the $2.9 billion they sold it for, at best it was a breakeven for Google before its operating losses. This was one of the more detailed analyses I saw at the time the sale was announced.

Now that analysis valued the patent portfolio at $5.5 billion, which, after the EU settlement, the ITC decisions, and the Apple vs. Samsung II decisions looks inflated. Add in the decision by both Apple and Google to withdraw their lawsuits (which Foss Patents claims is from a position of mutual weakness), and the actual losses look much greater now. We'll see if Google takes a write-down of the patents this quarter, or at least accelerates the rate at which they are amortizing them.

Overall, the decision appears to vindicate Microsoft's strategy of seeking licenses from Android OEMs. That will have made them more than what Apple will get from its lawsuits (assuming that both decisions against Samsung stand), and in retrospect that probably should have been the course that Apple took, particularly recognizing that they would never produce a "cheap" smartphone and that someone else (whether it was Samsung, Nokia, LG, or a newcomer) would wind up occupying that space with Android.

 

[dysamoria]

Patent reform is desperately needed in both the US and EU. From massive multinationals suing one another as a 'business strategy' to parasitic patent trolls scamming companies out of millions.

I know companies need to protect their property otherwise why make the big initial investments only to have someone else steal it, but this is a joke. You can patent anything and everything which is not how it should be.

I'm of the mindset that patents shouldn't really exist, especially software patents. I believe you should hold a strong copyright over a product - not a patent.

How can we compete going forward when a few big companies just sweep up all the innovation for themselves? How can small companies ever try and compete and pay for royalties on tech that is necessary to future innovation? If I go on to invent something, say a new power source for cars or a new battery technology, I bet that there would be a dozen patents I would have to use in order to innovate. We all build on the work of our predecessors, I don't see it as stealing, I see it as a shared human knowledge. Patents, in their current form, are not fit for the 21st century.

100% Right.

I suspect the real reason for this "agreement" between Apple and Google is to avoid making a clearer case of why extreme patent reform is needed in the USA. ACTUAL reform would strip them of the benefits that a screwed up system presents them in dominating their business worlds (and I'm sure a protracted lawsuit would reveal a lot of dirty laundry on how both companies' lobbying efforts actually CREATED this broken patent system in the first place).

This is more like collusion to protect their own interests from being negatively impacted by actual real corrective measures needed in the patent world.

It used to be that the USPTO refused software patents. They were forced to accept them by political pressure and lobbying from the computer industry. The failure is political, not practical.

 

[kdarling]

One gets the impression that most people here believe Apple started this series of lawsuits, but it was in fact Motorola.

Motorola wasn't planning on suing Apple until they got wind of Apple's pending lawsuit against them.

Motorola scrambled and managed to file first so they could set the court venue, instead of Apple being able to do so as usual.

So Motorola got off the first shot, but it was Apple who started the war.

They got Google to overpay for Motorola Mobility.

The evidence is quite the opposite: by bidding them up, Google got Apple's consortium to massively overpay for the Nortel patents. In the end, Google paid the same price per patent.

The difference is with what came with those patents, and how they ended up

The Nortel patents came with nothing else, and all of them have ended up being assigned to a new patent troll organization. Not a great investment in the end.

--

OTOH, Google's purchase not only got the patents, but also Motorola Mobility, which came with $3 billion in cash reserves AND a cell phone company AND a settop box company AND a top R&D group AND tax write offs.

So $12.5B - $3B cash - $2.4B settop sale - $1B+ in tax writeoffs during ownership - $2.9B sale of phones to Lenovo = total payout of ~$3B for patents... PLUS...

Google kept the Motorola Advanced Technology and Projects Group, which is headed by a former DARPA director. These are the people doing things like tattoo passwords, stomach acid powered diagnostic pills, the Project Ara build-it-yourself smartphone and the Moto360 watch.

It's clear who got the better deal.

 

[Oletros]

Ok let's see.
If we take video playback as representative of general workload:
The Samsung Galaxy S5 has a 2800 mAh battery, which is good for 11 hours of video playback.

The iPhone 5S has a 1570 mAh battery that is good for 10 hours of video playback.

So, an iPhone would get 16 hours of video playback with the Galaxy S5 battery.
60% more work from the same power.

Because the S5 has the same 4" screen than the iPhone, right? Because the S5 has the same 1136 x 640 than the iPhone, right?

 

[gprovida]

Complex Tactical Move

If my memory holds, then Motorola and Google initialized the suits and Apple responded. Most of the patents by Motorola were Standards Essential Patents, SEPs, and while they did not afford Google Motorola a lot of leverage, they energized the standards communities, regulators, and courts to make these patents FRAND based. Apple did respond with counter patents, and in the end the SEP attacks failed, ergo the agreements.

However, Apple has initiated patent and IP (included design IP against Motorola) against SAMSUNG with the intent to force SAMSUNG to stop shameslessly copying Apple's designs and products.

Since this behavior has been richly awarded SAMSUNg is reluctant to change its behavior, ergo the ongoing lawsuits with them.

I believe the primary motivation of Apple was and remains employee outrage over the copying and while their may maybe business benefits in the suits, it's really all about respecting the talent, inventiveness, effort, and risk their employees took.

 

[Piggie]

Ok let's see.
If we take video playback as representative of general workload:
The Samsung Galaxy S5 has a 2800 mAh battery, which is good for 11 hours of video playback.

The iPhone 5S has a 1570 mAh battery that is good for 10 hours of video playback.

So, an iPhone would get 16 hours of video playback with the Galaxy S5 battery.
60% more work from the same power.

The Galaxy S5 is a lot larger than the iPhone, not thicker but taller and wider. It has to be because it needs a bigger battery. Do you know any iPhone sized Android phones that do well? The Galaxy Mini seems to be a dud for example.

So, if Apple ends up doing a big screen phone, it might well have really nice battery life.

Well let's see. Perhaps Apple will offer a nice big 5" screen with batter life far better than Samsung

 

[travis64]

steve jobs is PISSED!!!!

 

[rtdunham]

Too much time, money and public resources for nothing, no one has won anything.

I wouldn't downplay the significance of a $119-million jury award. Ask yourself: what did General Motors just get fined for a decade of hiding an ignition switch defect that resulted in more than a dozen motorists' deaths? $35 million.

And a jury that awards one party in a case 1,000 times more than the other party makes a pretty profound statement on how that court felt the two companies behaved.

 

[Oletros]

I wouldn't downplay the significance of a billion-dollar jury award. Ask yourself: what did General Motors just get fined for a decade of hiding an ignition switch defect that resulted in more than a dozen motorists' deaths? $35 million.

There is no jury award in the Apple Motorola /Google cases

 

[kdarling]

Ok let's see. If we take video playback as representative of general workload: The Samsung Galaxy S5 has a 2800 mAh battery, which is good for 11 hours of video playback.

The iPhone 5S has a 1570 mAh battery that is good for 10 hours of video playback.

So, an iPhone would get 16 hours of video playback with the Galaxy S5 battery. 60% more work from the same power.

You ignored the huge difference in screens. The iPhone has only 1136×640 = 727,040 pixels. The Galaxy has 1920x1080 = 2,073,600 pixels, or almost three times as many. Thus:

• The iPhone uses 1570mAh / 10 hours / 727K = .00022 mAh per pixel.
• The Galaxy uses 2800mAh / 11 hours / 2M = .00012 mAh per pixel.

The Galaxy is nearly twice as efficient in battery usage per pixel.

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

About time... Lets move on guys .

YaY to the settlement.

You sound like the typical millennial who was taught that the world sings kumbaya and everyone gets along.

This is a PATHETIC move on Apples part. Admitting defeat.

Apple is weak without Jobs and the vultures will soon be circling.

 

[2IS]

Interesting that Samsung isn't listed as part of the settlement. Most of the ridiculousness of the law suits revolve around Apple vs Samsung

----------

You sound like the typical millennial who was taught that the world sings kumbaya and everyone gets along.

This is a PATHETIC move on Apples part. Admitting defeat.

Apple is weak without Jobs and the vultures will soon be circling.

You sound like someone who thinks he's always right and everyone mostly ignores.

 

[Oletros]

This was one of the more detailed analyses I saw at the time the sale was announced.

Good analysis