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The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

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Off Topic thread here | 429 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Breach of Contract
Authored by: Ian Al on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 02:12 AM EST
I promise I won't pull your leg.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Corrections Here
Authored by: SilverWave on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 02:19 AM EST
:-)

---
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 | # ]

Off Topic thread here
Authored by: SilverWave on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 02:20 AM EST
;-)

---
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 | # ]

News Pick Thread Here.
Authored by: SilverWave on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 02:21 AM EST
:-D

---
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 | # ]

Comes Thread Here.
Authored by: SilverWave on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 02:22 AM EST
:-|

---
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 | # ]

Microsoft Tells Its FRAND Story to the Court in Seattle ~pj
Authored by: mpellatt on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 05:41 AM EST
In the longer term, there will be another effect if patent
holders who have contributed their patents to industry
standards see themselves having their rights removed.

There will be no more industry standards.

The effect of this is is left as an exercise for the reader.
And the anti-trust regulators.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Dissolving FRAND agreement?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 06:05 AM EST
I wonder if Motorola couldn't/shouldn't just dissolve its FRAND agreement, since
obviously when that contract was signed there was no meeting of minds. Motorola
and others based on previous ruling would have reasonably assumed that agreeing
to license under FRAND terms would still allow them to enforce their patents,
not allowing Microsoft et al to say "haha, we're not paying you and there's
nothing you can do since we will just refuse your licensing offers as not being
FRAND".
Honestly it's quite ridiculous that the standards bodies just keep silent, they
drafted the terms, they surely would be the ones to know what they meant by
them!

[ Reply to This | # ]

M$ "opted to file the document as a tiff"
Authored by: tiger99 on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 07:40 AM EST
Clearly they have either negligible technical competence, or are unable to trust
that redactions in one of their more appropriate file formats (insofar as any
non-standards compliant format is appropriate) to stay redacted. Says a great
deal about M$, which will not be entirely new to regular Groklaw readers.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Shell Game
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 08:00 AM EST

Now, Microsoft estimates that the patents are worth essentially nothing, or next to nothing. It actually values them, at one point, as being worth zero. Is this a game? One so intricate and boring that the public isn't seeing the pea moved from one hand to the other?

I'm a Patent Cynic. I don't see that ANY patents fulfill the goal set for them in your Constitution.

That said, they are part of the current system. Microsoft and Apple are cheating. They want one set of rules for their patents, and another set of rules for everyone else.

I rather suspect the court system will catch on at some point and smack them down, but it will take a lot of time and money before this happens. Happily from my point of view, they, and the rest of the people trying to game the system, are helping to bring the problems to light.

So I may get my wish, that the entire system comes down.

Wayne
http://madhatter.ca

[ Reply to This | # ]

Microsoft Tells Its FRAND Story to the Court in Seattle ~pj
Authored by: 351-4V on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 09:48 AM EST
What I don't understand is why is there so much emphasis on the valuation of the
patents in question at this juncture? Seems to me that the only thing which has
any bearing on the matter at hand is proving discrimination in the negotiation*
process by Motorola. Doesn't matter if they charged an arm and leg for the
patents as long as they charged everyone equally - yes? Microsoft appears to
have successfully fooled the court in this respect. I guess if the facts didn't
support my case, I'd be reduced to illusory arguments as well. Surprisingly I
don't really see Motorola pointing out that this all turns on discriminatory
actions not valuation.

*The non-existant negotiation process. The one
Microsoft completely circumvented.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Microsoft Tells Its FRAND Story to the Court in Seattle ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 10:16 AM EST
Its interesting how Microsoft is playing with words when they claim they are a
willing to license under reasonable terms, thus they should not have their
products removed from market. Of course they are only willing provided the
reasonable amount equates to nothing.

In my humble opinion, if a company does not negotiate in good faith with the
patent holder before turning to the courts then they should be deemed to not be
"willing to license under reasonable terms" as a matter of fact.

It may have already been discussed to death, but if the courts decide that a
company should be allowed to license FRAND patents at a fraction of the price of
what all other licensees have paid, doesn't that then mean the previous
licensees have paid unreasonable rates? What are the ramifications of that, if
anything?

It seems that if Microsoft and Apple have their way there will be very little
incentive to develop standards. Or at the very least, companies contributing to
standards will have an incentive to not agree to FRAND terms. Or am I missing
something totally obvious here?

[ Reply to This | # ]

"unfair discrimination"
Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 10:40 AM EST
Microsoft is playing with words. It is using the shorthand developed by the
civil rights movement that has made "discrimination" a dirty word. I
am old enough to remember when "discriminating people" were people who
chose things carefully for their vale.

In this case it seems Motorola is not discriminating, they are making the same
offer to everyone then "fairly" discriminating those agreements based
on the reciprocal value the other party brings to the table.

Microsoft also claims a FRAND commitment "gives up the right to employ the
conventional process of negotiation to extract all that the traffic will bear
from individual implementers". That is patently false. There is no
commitment to discount the value of the patents, only a commitment to treat
everyone equally and fairly.

The reasonable prong is only a slight modification of fair and
nondiscriminatory, after all reasonable people may disagree about the value of a
particular patent or technology. There are strong incentives that favor lower
royalties, to encourage widespread adoption however truly innovative
breakthrough technology may allow even justify very high royalty rates.

---
Rsteinmetz - IANAL therefore my opinions are illegal.

"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."
Randy Newman - The Title Theme from Monk

[ Reply to This | # ]

Microsoft filed document as a tiff ..
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 12:21 PM EST
"What an awful job it was, because Microsoft opted to file the document as a tiff, so it ended up requiring a lot of hand typing

How else are they going to make sure Google can't find it ...

[ Reply to This | # ]

I would be worried if I was MS
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, January 09 2013 @ 02:40 PM EST
Microsoft has a lot more to lose in this battle. Windows is
still a near monopoly. And if MS were forced into FRAND
licensing for Windows or key technologies in Windows, then
I'd imagine it would be bad for their income.

Now, I know that Windows is not (currently) licenced under
FRAND terms, but you have to think that if MS & Apple
succeed in tilting FRAND towards the licencee that some
people will think that as an essential piece of software,
Windows should be available to anyone at a fair cost under
reasonable, non-discriminatory terms, and might initiate
moves to force MS to fairly licence it as such.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Microsoft Tells Its FRAND Story to the Court in Seattle ~pj
Authored by: rebentisch on Monday, January 21 2013 @ 02:18 PM EST
Would someone be so kind and explain me the difference between RAND and FRAND,
please?

[ Reply to This | # ]

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