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| Authored by: Gringo_ on Friday, July 06 2012 @ 11:45 PM EDT |
The link provided leads to a BBC article called "Patent
war talks to be
hosted by UN agency to protect innovation".
I would like to
congratulate the BBC for getting the
story straight.
The story is -
Microsoft and Apple have been frustrated
at times in their attempts to shake
down both Samsung and
Motorola. These latter two responded to the shake down
attempts with "FRAND" patents. So then at least Microsoft
started a campaign
to try to restrain FRAND patents, with
some success. They seemed to have gained
the sympathy of
more than one body.
In this article we see the issue
being raised at the
level of the UN, which to me is quite surprising because I
didn't think the UN concerned itself with such issues - what
with all the wars
and starving children in the world.
So the BBC article started off
talking about the concerns
about FRAND patents, and at first I was really
concerned I
was going to see the same old propaganda so successfully
propagated by Microsoft. Instead, the BBC article showed
understanding of the
issues...
Companies are supposed to license
standards-essential
patents on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms
(Frand)
However, lawyers have noted that doing so would deprive
other
companies of way to counter-attacking other types of
patent lawsuits pursued by
the two companies.
Motorola Mobility - now owned by Google - managed to
impose
a brief sales ban of iPhone and iPads in Germany last year
after Apple
refused to pay it a licence fee. The dispute
centred on a patent deemed crucial
to the GPRS data
transmission standard used by GSM cellular networks
.
Motorola has also attempted to ban Xbox games consoles and
Windows 7
software in Germany after Microsoft refused to pay
it fees for a technology
necessary to offer H.264 video
coding and playback.
Samsung has also
attempted to use its 3G patents to bar
Apple from selling products in Europe,
Japan and the US.
The efforts have led the EU to launch official
investigations into both Motorola and Samsung's behaviour.
'No simple
answer'
However, industry watchers note that Apple has used lawsuits
to ban Samsung products in both the US and Australia and
attempted to restrict
sales of other companies' devices
powered by Android.
Microsoft has
also demanded and secured license fees from
manufacturers making smartphones
using Google's operating
system.
A German court gave Motorola the
right to ban the Xbox
console from sale in Germany in May
Illya Kazi, a member
of the UK's Chartered Institute of
Patent Attorneys said competing interests
would make it hard
to resolve the matter.
Once again -
congratulations to the BBC! [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: SilverWave on Saturday, July 07 2012 @ 06:24 AM EDT |
Illya Kazi, a member of the UK's Chartered Institute of Patent Attorneys said
competing interests would make it hard to resolve the matter.
"The situation is complex and it's very easy for someone to complain
something is not fair because it is adverse to their position," he told the
BBC.
---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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- Translation? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, July 08 2012 @ 03:33 PM EDT
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