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Google Claims a 'Hostile, Organized Campaign Against Android'
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Gubbz
macrumors member
Google are sore because they didn't win and as so many have already said, they they don't have the power to restrict their competitors. I do hate a lot of the patent issues that go on, more so, the ones that sit back, wait until the iPhone got up to 3 or 4, then come out the woodwork demanding compensation for infringements since the first... Where the hell were they on release, didn't they hear about it's release? No, they just sit back watching the pot build up before stepping forward...
In another much commented part of this discussion, there was a great opinion on Macworld UK that boiled down to this:
We are Apple's customers, Apple try to keep us happy, we buy into Apple's free services by buying their products, thus we are paying for them
We are Google users, NOT customers. Google's customers are advertisers and Google aims to keep them happy.
I much rather Apple's way of keeping my information local, rather than Google's selling it on...
In another much commented part of this discussion, there was a great opinion on Macworld UK that boiled down to this:
We are Apple's customers, Apple try to keep us happy, we buy into Apple's free services by buying their products, thus we are paying for them
We are Google users, NOT customers. Google's customers are advertisers and Google aims to keep them happy.
I much rather Apple's way of keeping my information local, rather than Google's selling it on...
Plutonius
macrumors G4
I'm confused over Google's complaint. If you are using someone else's intellectual property, you still need to pay to use their intellectual property no matter who owns the patent (i.e. Google should be paying regardless of who owns the patents (except if Google owns the patents)). Why does Apple, RIM, or Microsoft buying the patents mean that Google will have to start paying (Google should have already be paying to the previous patent holder) ?
As someone who has worked in the academic research community for ~15 years, Apple has NEVER been a participant in the research community - NEVER. Many of my colleagues and I interact with Google and other corporate researchers regularly. Apple is honestly the lone standout I can think of who has ZERO interaction.
Google is correct, a hostile environment has emerged. It's absurd of you to criticize them for battening down the hatches in such an environment. Complete mobile device Operating Systems could be licensed a few years ago for anywhere from free to less than $10 a unit. Now they're talking about $15 just for some subset of patents??? Not surprising, those folks need that $$$ to pay off the absurd amount of money they paid for the patents. We all will pay in the end for these absurdities.
We need to end most software patents, particularly GUI ones. It is like taking wood and nails and patenting every conceivable angle they could be hammered together into as a separate "invention". Eventually building construction would be impossible.
aristotle
macrumors 68000
Really? Not kept up with the news have we? Google has pressured to censoring requests from governments, they bought Keyhole software which was funded by the CIA's venture capital arm In-q-Tel and they have a number of former spooks (NSA spies) on their payroll.
Keyhole is what Google Earth was called before Google bought them. It was developed for use by the intelligence community originally.
blackburn
macrumors 6502a
Let's see Samsung is using android to make a copy of the iPhone, Google has many things borrowed from the iPhone, to bad they also borrowed java from sun😀.
And they expect to earn friends? They are competitors!
Anyway the patents thing is getting annoying. It is money that could be spent in R&D instead of layers.
And they expect to earn friends? They are competitors!
Anyway the patents thing is getting annoying. It is money that could be spent in R&D instead of layers.
LOL in a world where iPhone and iPad are dominating, saying Apple is not competing is factually inaccurate.
Other than that, everything else they say is an opinion.
Other than that, everything else they say is an opinion.
Isn't funny!
Nobody seem to talk about a pure filthy scumbag who quit the Apple direction board to make Android alive.....
I love competition but i hate treachery of a gunk filled CEO....
The day "He" a decide to make the treason is "a date which will live in infamy".😀
Nobody seem to talk about a pure filthy scumbag who quit the Apple direction board to make Android alive.....
I love competition but i hate treachery of a gunk filled CEO....
The day "He" a decide to make the treason is "a date which will live in infamy".😀
Google is neither good nor bad, they are just a profit-seeking company like everyone else and all their actions are indicative of that. The problems of Google is that they promote themselves as an angel of "don't be evil" and "open" ideals when their actions and business model indicate otherwise.
If you are actively selling yourself as a "good" entity, it's inevitable that you'll get a lot of flak because it's pretty much impossible that you are in a business, especially one that collects information and sell that for ads money, and expect that you won't do questionable things.
The main strength Google is that its ad-based business model allows it to try all sorts of beta stuff and give services away for free, which earns the,m the geek creds.
Since no one here knows the actual strategy of EITHER party - it's all armchair analysis anyway - and relatively meaningless.
Would one party buy them to prevent others from having it so it remains a non issue. Or would one party buy them to litigate or cause problem.
Is the purchase an offensive maneuver or defensive.
You can call whatever company you want a whiner when it comes to patent purchases/responses. But until action is actually taken regarding those patents - you might as well and try and predict the weather with accuracy. Good luck.
Would one party buy them to prevent others from having it so it remains a non issue. Or would one party buy them to litigate or cause problem.
Is the purchase an offensive maneuver or defensive.
You can call whatever company you want a whiner when it comes to patent purchases/responses. But until action is actually taken regarding those patents - you might as well and try and predict the weather with accuracy. Good luck.
truz
macrumors 6502a
I say it's about time Google gets that small feeling back. I'm sick of hearing about them picking on the small guys (froogles). Not saying MS and APP are not guilty of doing the same thing. I have had my own share of threats from google so I'm slightly against google. Even though I use there search engine daily as well as adwords and adsense.
chr1s60
macrumors 68020
Perhaps putting this extra license fee for manufacturers would be a good thing for Android. Yes the phones would be more expensive, but let's face it, Google not forcing these manufacturers or providers into software updates and other standards ruins the Android OS for about 85% of the Android phones on the market. Maybe with this extra fee the manufacturers would actually care a bit more.
PlipPlop
macrumors 6502a
I can only assume that this talk of wanting $15/unit is legit. I would say that is an offensive maneuver. Reality is that if Google had bought these patents for a more reasonable price, based on Google's historic patent use, they would've mostly sat on them and used them defensively.
patrick0brien
macrumors 68040
-Phazer
Google, the company itself, is based and started from a software patent. They cast stones from a glass house.
Illustration (Halfway down the page): Linkypoo
glossywhite
macrumors 65816
Thanks, now I've got that dull little tune in my head! 😛
Here's a song for Google:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DksSPZTZES0&feature=player_detailpage#t=88s
... and now my ears hurt! 😛
KnightWRX
macrumors Pentium
Yeah, I remember this whole thread where this guy made an analogy about "water in the desert" vs "water in the ocean" and some kind of inherent value thing. Boy was that a poor one. 🙄
Seriously, guys?
You're overlooking the main point here: Google doesn't really care that it has lost out on the patents -- it cares that Microsoft and Apple are now patent-trolling, hand-in-hand, and purporting to raise end-cost of adoption if consumers choose not to buy Apple products (iOS-based hardware, e.g. iPhone, iPod, iPad) or Microsoft products (Windows Mobile).
Here, Apple and Microsoft are saying, "Don't want our stuff? Here, go get yourself your Android machine at $[x] premium more, because they want to use our patents".
Why is this bad, and why does it make absolutely no sense? Because those patents were bought, and not developed, by Apple or Microsoft.
Patents, when enforced by the original developer for his own protection, fit its original purpose. But when patents are enforced by its subsequent purchasers who benefit little from the innovation itself, and who use it only to prevent others to get to the same stage, that's just mean, and meant to stifle innovation. One can't say that Apple and Microsoft aren't unethical in what they're doing (and they should be pointed out for it), especially when they're hurting consumers instead of it just being healthy business competition.
You're overlooking the main point here: Google doesn't really care that it has lost out on the patents -- it cares that Microsoft and Apple are now patent-trolling, hand-in-hand, and purporting to raise end-cost of adoption if consumers choose not to buy Apple products (iOS-based hardware, e.g. iPhone, iPod, iPad) or Microsoft products (Windows Mobile).
Here, Apple and Microsoft are saying, "Don't want our stuff? Here, go get yourself your Android machine at $[x] premium more, because they want to use our patents".
Why is this bad, and why does it make absolutely no sense? Because those patents were bought, and not developed, by Apple or Microsoft.
Patents, when enforced by the original developer for his own protection, fit its original purpose. But when patents are enforced by its subsequent purchasers who benefit little from the innovation itself, and who use it only to prevent others to get to the same stage, that's just mean, and meant to stifle innovation. One can't say that Apple and Microsoft aren't unethical in what they're doing (and they should be pointed out for it), especially when they're hurting consumers instead of it just being healthy business competition.
Logic Fail.
"Ad-Supported" is not "free". It is "no up-front cost", or "metered cost", in many ways, but "free" is a stretch. It costs you, the consumer, in time, attention, and (significantly) privacy.
Going way off-topic here, but ...
Umm, iCloud is free for 5GB of storage (whatever you put up there) and for unlimited storage of music bought from Apple. Google Music is in Beta and Google has stated post-beta it is likely to NOT be "free" (because they can't get a good ad-support model built around it).
Google Maps were definitely innovative, and a huge step forward. Google didn't do this for charity, though; they make massive amounts of money off Google Maps. They are ad-supported, both in terms of direct ads being shown on the page when using the maps and in the listings/reviews attached to the maps.
GMail was "innovative" in that it offered 1GB of "space" when others were still dicking around with 50-100MB of email quotas. I'm not sure that is really "innovative". The other crap Google has "innovated" with in gmail, labels etc? IMHO, not significant. BTW, for that "free" space, Google got a treasure trove of ad demographics information. As with most other major Google ventures, your privacy and attention are sold to pay for that space. Google makes MUCH more money off GMail per user than any of their paid-quota competitors did, because it is capitalizing on your ignorance of what it is doing with your data.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I have 2 software patents. One of which is a pretty fundamental patent relevant to massively multiplayer gaming. It involved some really brilliant inventions our team discovered having to do with timing in high latency networks and how to deal with it.
It happens this patent appeared once in a slahsdot article. They went bonkers. Claimed we'd invented the idea of having an online game. Claimed it was a bogus patent. None of them actually read the patent. None of them understood what it said.
Later, a discussion group discovered the existence of the patent and claimed that IRC was prior art and that we were patenting IRC.
Like that patent, which I knew the terms of intimately, every time I've seen someone claim a patent is "bogus" and researched it, I've found they were wrong, and the patent actually was innovative.
Apple really did invent multi-touch and deserves the patent protection for it. Google really is making counterfeit iPhones and really does deserve to lose a lot of money for this theft.
I know people are android fans... but the reality is, if Apple hadn't published these patents, google wouldn't know how to clone the iPhone and android would still be on the drawing board.
Google stole, they deserve to pay.
It happens this patent appeared once in a slahsdot article. They went bonkers. Claimed we'd invented the idea of having an online game. Claimed it was a bogus patent. None of them actually read the patent. None of them understood what it said.
Later, a discussion group discovered the existence of the patent and claimed that IRC was prior art and that we were patenting IRC.
Like that patent, which I knew the terms of intimately, every time I've seen someone claim a patent is "bogus" and researched it, I've found they were wrong, and the patent actually was innovative.
Apple really did invent multi-touch and deserves the patent protection for it. Google really is making counterfeit iPhones and really does deserve to lose a lot of money for this theft.
I know people are android fans... but the reality is, if Apple hadn't published these patents, google wouldn't know how to clone the iPhone and android would still be on the drawing board.
Google stole, they deserve to pay.
KnightWRX
macrumors Pentium
Then I guess Apple didn't have much say, this is my brand new HTC ChaCha (disclaimer, this is a post tainted with sarcasm, I don't actually own that phone, I still have my trusty 3GS) :
Oh wait, you're one of those posters who think Android the OS has anything to do with hardware. Oh you guys are so funny what with your complete ignorance of Android yet your healthy criticism of it. 😀 How sad must it be to be so afraid of a little software platform.
