News
#Patentfun for Oct 31 – Nov 4
Pretty dry week this week for topics, however there is one shining gem in this list.
As always, these are a listing of what I saw this past week that pertains to the legal battles surrounding Android and the mobile OS space. I’ll credit where I get the links from, then provide my thoughts on what the implications might be.
- Microsoft says their licensing arrangements are the best solution to the patentwars. They claim that the licensing agreements they’ve made [and they’ve made a few deals thus far [Acer, HTC, Compal, Quanta, …]. Their lawyer, Horacio Gutiérrez, was defending Google’s claim that licensing is extorting companies – he claims that the licensing arrangement is a ‘cleaner’ solution then the entangled mess that it has become [I added the last bit], and that they only go after companies that have ‘line by line’ copying and not ‘similar ideas’ [like another company?]
- Apple loses patent case against NT-K, a Spanish tablet manufacturer. This is big news. One that gives me hope and shows the weakness in Apple’s serial legal nature. In fair turn of play, NTK is now counter-suing Apple for ‘moral damages’ (and an anti-trust suit) for taking this all one step too far when they filed CRIMINAL charges against NTK. Besides a nice ‘lose’ for Apple, I think this has some implications down the road, if they can lose in one area, potentially it will weaken their claims in all others. Probably not retro-active [so sorry Australia / Germany…], but good news going forward.
- Samsung to put Apple’s Ive to verbally make the claim of patent infringement in court. I’m not sure what to make of this. I want to believe Samsung has some sort of “Matlock moment” up their sleeve of why they’d be brining up one of their enemy’s head guys to talk about why they brought the suit about. Smart move or major blunder?
So what do you think? Is the dust settling? Are things starting to get ramped up? I recall a recent post a while back:
from a post from Android Police on G+
I think that about sums it up really.
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