Joint Venture Involving Apple and Microsoft Acquires Novell Patents For $450 Million

[4nNtt]

$500,000 per patent. Looks like Novell did pretty good. Hopefully this provides some meaningful defense against IP holding companies. It is starting to feel like patents are an investment. You get in early then hold on to them with no intent (or failed attempts) to develop the technology so you can cash in later. Unfortunately patent reform probably will not happen until there is no money in it. Hopefully these "war chests" cut down on this behavior so this may one day be a reality.

 

[dethmaShine]

Just four points:

1. Linux performs MUCH faster than OS X on the same hardware.
2. Linux runs on MUCH more hardware architectures than OS X.
3. Linux is more robust, stable and secure than OS X.
4. Unlike OS X, Linux is a first class citizen in data centers with industry-wide acceptance and support.

But, of course, Apple won't switch to Linux. Because of the GPL, they couldn't add any proprietary, closed source DRM stuff into the Linux kernel. And having to open source some of their walled garden code certainly is not in the interest of Apple.

What a load of crap that is.

 

[alent1234]

You're reading too much into this because these are Novell Patents that include LINUX/UNIX Patents, nothing to do with Smartphones.

What do most smartphones run as an os?

 

[cmaier]

I'm not talking about the patent specifically, I'm talking about the "thing" that the patent covers... Patents are not like automobile ownership, they are description of how to do something.

They actually are like automobile ownership. You can "own" a patent just like you own a car. You can sell a patent, give it away, or otherwise dispose of it just like you can when you own a car. And just like when you transfer a car, there will be paperwork involved in transferring a patent.

By the way, patents are not necessarily a description of how to do something. They can also be a description of a thing or of a composition of matter.

For example: Apple has a process that makes A turn into B, and they patent that process.

Ok.

MS complains and says that they've been using a patented process that turns B into C,

Ok, but to be clear, it doesn't matter if MS has been using the process that turns B into C. All that matters is that they patented it.

and that Apple's A>B process is while not quite the same, similar enough it infringes on the MS patent. There is no question that Apple owns it's patent, and that MS owns their patent. The whole question is whether Apple's process is similar to the MS's patented process. It can take a long and expensive court fight before these questions are settled.

In your hypothetical, it doesn't matter whether Apple has patented A>B. It's completely irrelevant. All that matters is that Apple is actually performing the process turning A>B and that MS claims that their B>C patent gives them the exclusive right to perform the A>B process. Thus MS would file suit for infringement of the B>C patent, asserting that turning A>B infringes their exclusive rights.

The fact that Apple has a patent on A>B gives Apple exactly zero right to actually perform the process of turning A>B, and hence that part of your hypothetical adds zero complication to how this plays out. It's legally irrelevant. Apple cannot defend itself by saying "we have a patent on turning A into B, and we are practicing our own patent."

With the consortium, Apple there are going to be certain processes that MS and Apple (we assume) have cross-licenced to each other.

Incorrect. There are certain processes (or structures or compositions of matter) that the consortium has licensed to both MS and Apple.

But now, is Apple's A>B process similar to MS's B>C process, Novell's C>D process (now cross licensed, we assume). Or, perhaps MS is blowing in the wind, and the Apple A>B falls entirely within a sound patent.

Even if A>B falls within Apple's patent, it might also fall within MS's B>C patent or Novell's C>D patent. They are not mutually exclusive. And that doesn't mean the A>B patent is not sound. It may be perfectly sound. I can get a patent on a stool with legs. You can get a patent on a stool with 3 legs. You can't build stools with 3 legs without infringing my patent on stools with legs. I can't build stools with 3 legs without infringing your patent. Both patents are "sound."

My point is that the consortium does not raise ANY complications of the sort you are envisioning.

If patent law was easy as automobile ownership, there wouldn't be all of these lawsuits flying around. The big corps would just sit around the table and compare pink slips.

How does that follow? The lawsuits are about whether patents are infringed. Such lawsuits do not involve fighting over whether the defendant is practicing its own patents vs. some licensed patent vs. the plaintiff's patent. You started this conversation by asserting how this licensing structure/consortium somehow complicated things. It doesn't.

 

[tdungan]

At the time, the full list of CPTN Holdings LLC partners was not known. The entity was described as a "consortium organized by Microsoft."

.....organized by M$???

Maybe it's just the MacRumors colored glasses I'm reading that with,
but the name of the company (to me) shouts an Apple-inspired holding...

CuPerTiNo LLC????

 

[snberk103]

They actually are like automobile ownership. You can "own" a patent just like you own a car. You can sell a patent, give it away, or otherwise dispose of it just like you can when you own a car. And just like when you transfer a car, there will be paperwork involved in transferring a patent.

By the way, patents are not necessarily a description of how to do something. They can also be a description of a thing or of a composition of matter.
...

RE: Cross Licensing: My language was a bit sloppy, yours is a better description.

We actually don't disagree as much as this discussion might make it look it. I agree (for the most part) that the patents themselves are are owned by their respective companies. That they can be traded, sold, given away... just like an automobile. As long as the chain of ownership is clear and undisputed (because so many patents are based on the work of other patents).... the analogy being that you hold clear title to the car, but perhaps the left rear wheel is partially owned by somebody else.

Where we disagree is how the patent is defined. I used processes, because for most part MS and Apple patents will overlap there - not the composition of a material.

Patents, in my analogy, are more like land ownership .... not automobile ownership. There is still no question that a company can buy and sell land, trade it, etc. However, the actual boundaries of the land often a bit fuzzy. I'm using the example of rural land, where the land survey was originally described, and not a lot of iron pins were planted.

So, the land survey says the boundary will be the middle of the channel of the stream. Easy and clear, and both neighbours agree to that. But when the land clearing starts it's noticed that since the land was originally surveyed the stream has cut a number of channels, and there are islands. Which channel do you use as the edge of the property? Or perhaps the description in the original survey for another side was from the middle of the road. The road as it existed then, or the road as it exists now? When these vague descriptions put a gold deposit on one property, or the other, then these boundaries can be tough to settle.

Patents are like that - imo. Ownership of the patent/land is not in dispute. It's just how the words of the patent are interpreted when two sides have $milliions at stake.

I was once visiting a kibbutz in the valley between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea. The international border between Jordan and Israel was defined as the deepest part of the channel of the dry stream bed that connected the two Seas. The kibbutz's farm land bordered on the international boundary. When they needed more land, they would go out at midnight and carve a new "channel" and move the border a little bit further east.

Or there was the case recently of the island in the Rio Grande that changed hands recently - between the US and Mexico - because a channel in the River was deemed to have been created artificially, and that the island was therefore on the other side of the natural channel of the Rio Grande, which defines that bit of the international border.

 

[cmaier]

RE: Cross Licensing: My language was a bit sloppy, yours is a better description.

We actually don't disagree as much as this discussion might make it look it. I agree (for the most part) that the patents themselves are are owned by their respective companies. That they can be traded, sold, given away... just like an automobile. As long as the chain of ownership is clear and undisputed (because so many patents are based on the work of other patents).... the analogy being that you hold clear title to the car, but perhaps the left rear wheel is partially owned by somebody else.

You lost me again. A patent that is "based on the work of other patents" meaning what? Are you referring to continuations/continuations-in-part/divisionals? (which are subject to specific rules regarding identicality of specification and inventorship?) Or the fact that every patent essentially discloses the state of the current art before then explaining how it adds something new on top of that art?

In any case, even where patent B claims priority to patent A and contains an identical specification, the ownership of patent A and B are handled just like cars. They may be independently sold and transferred to different parties. And the owner of patent B does not have to "share" ownership in any way with the owner of patent A.

Where we disagree is how the patent is defined. I used processes, because for most part MS and Apple patents will overlap there - not the composition of a material.

Why? Most of the patent claims actually are likely to cover structures (e.g.: "We claim: a computer readable medium, containing instructions ...")

Patents, in my analogy, are more like land ownership .... not automobile ownership. There is still no question that a company can buy and sell land, trade it, etc. However, the actual boundaries of the land often a bit fuzzy. I'm using the example of rural land, where the land survey was originally described, and not a lot of iron pins were planted.

True enough. The claims are like posts in the land telling you the metes and bounds of the protectable patent matter.

So, the land survey says the boundary will be the middle of the channel of the stream. Easy and clear, and both neighbours agree to that. But when the land clearing starts it's noticed that since the land was originally surveyed the stream has cut a number of channels, and there are islands. Which channel do you use as the edge of the property? Or perhaps the description in the original survey for another side was from the middle of the road. The road as it existed then, or the road as it exists now? When these vague descriptions put a gold deposit on one property, or the other, then these boundaries can be tough to settle.

And that's what infringement lawsuits are always about.

Patents are like that - imo. Ownership of the patent/land is not in dispute. It's just how the words of the patent are interpreted when two sides have $milliions at stake.

Ok. But my point is that nothing about this consortium changes any of that.