Google, Samsung, Others, Sued by Rockstar Consortium
Apple and Microsoft -- two of the older tech giants -- have consistently faced tough competition from relative newcomer, Google; now it seems they've formed a temporary alliance to hit Google where it hurts -- search.
Several lawsuits were filed last week against Google, HTC, Samsung and many others led by the unlikely friendship of Apple, BlackBerry, Ericsson, Microsoft and Sony -- collectively known as the Rockstar Consortium. The plaintiffs' claim against Google and its partners is over seven patents that use Internet terms to help direct advertising. This basically amounts to Google's entire core business model and, if successful, the suit would be a tough one for the king of search to slough off.
Patent wars are becoming an increasingly big deal as big companies buy up patents to both stomp out competition and help the company take exclusive control of future market niches. Typically, these lawsuits result in either a dismissal or a monetary reward for the injured party. With this suit, though, it's hard to imagine how Google would be able to continue to function if it had to whether such a blow.
This suit comes after a bidding war over patents held by Nortel, sold off in 2011. In the end, Google's bid topped $4.4 billion -- just narrowly losing to the Rockstar group at $4.5 billion. After losing out on Nortel, Google went on to pick up Motorola's chest of patents for $12.5 billion.
It's much too early to figure which way this case will go, but things don't look great for Google and friends.
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If you can't backup your statement that Apple is the leader in this suit, then I advise you to take your clear iHate elsewhere instead of an article that clearly lists joint partnership between multiple companies.
And no, selective reading gets you no where in life.
Are there no editors on this site? "whether" means "expressing a doubt or choice between alternatives" whereas in this case the phrase you used comes from "weather" meaning "come safely through (a storm)"
Problem solved. It would be way cheaper than the risk of losing the court battle and even maybe a possible settle (in the long term) for all of the companies.
Cheers!
Second Rockstar isn't sueing just for search terms they're also going after mobile technology like LTE, which is why Samsung and HTC are also defendants.
What's totally insane is that Rockstar is using the fact that Google bought Motorola Mobility as an argument that they are abusing patents when this happened AFTER the group that can't compete bought Nortel.
ARS has a good series of articles on this if anyone wants to get the full story and not the abbreviated Tom's version.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/patent-war-goes-nuclear-microsoft-apple-owned-rockstar-sues-google/
1) there are not 1000s of android models
2) there are many of all shapes and sizes and power levels...you know...choice...oh wait...you consume apple therefore you do not know what choice is! lol
3) apple is the one who sues non-stop and you can bet apple cobbled this lawsuit together. also worth mentioning, certain apple products were banned in the US and Obama reversed the decision protecting apple BUT did not reverse the decision for Samsung. blatant protectionism. Apple cannot compete without the US government protecting them, US media promoting them and Apple suing everyone.
When was the last time anyone saw Google file a patent lawsuit against another major tech company? If I'm not mistaken, Google has a policy that they don't sue unless sued. When was the last time Larry Page or Eric Schmidt publicly said anything bad about another company? It's pretty clear who has the high ground here.
After looking over a large chunk of what the lawsuit is about, it's not hard to determine that there is very little chance of this going anywhere and that's really fortunate because it's clear who the innovators are and who is dead weight.
It is and needs to be fixed. On the other end, companies have no respect for other companies property. They will use it and then pay fines as it turns out to be cheaper since they get the product out faster and make more money faster.
Honestly its both parties fault. The one doing the new thing needs to research before release to make sure they are not breaking any patents and the ones who own the patents need to stop wanting exorbitant amounts for simple use.
Apple could innovate again instead of dumping all their resources into suing other companies for all the ideas Apple stole in the first place!
Wouldn't the world be a better place?
In Chrome you cand switch to Bing very easy, but in IE you must search google for the addon.
Watch the language. - G
An other frightening topic : will they sue Open-Sources dev for patent issue too ? Well... Orwell was right and far under the truth too...