Post 23: Take a stand against patent trolls!!

Last Friday, Google, along with Blackberry, EarthLink and Red Hat, appealed to the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice to take stronger action against companies like Lodsys, Intellectual Ventures, and other “patent assertion entities”. They believe those companies abuse patents for financial gain and are an increasing detriment to the technology industry, costing U.S. companies alone nearly $30 billion in 2011 and $80 billion when accounting for all costs-direct and indirect. This reminds me news I got last week about how Nokia sold its 125 patents to the patent holding company, Pendrell Corp. I wonder if Pendrell will use those patents as a patent troll later. According to Matthew Bye, Google’s senior competitor adviser, patent speculation hurts the interests of consumers and patent trolls targeted more to the small companies, which hampering innovation and undermine competition in the market.

I think patent troll are key product from patent war. As the global smartphone market size expands, competition among the various mobile phone Giants are becoming more brutal. Apple and his rivals agreed that even if one of the most unassuming but very unique features in the phone might have been able to allow certain companies to gain a crucial advantage in the competition. Thus, they invested heavily in the research-related technologies; at the same time, they fight patent wars around the world to safeguard their rights, with dozens of patents to prevent competitors’ products. The only goal is forcing competitors to give up or to purchase related patent licensing. However, their practices also tell patent troll that patent war contains huge portent to make money. I admit that Google and other companies’ actions are right to fix the serious problems in the existing patent system. Nevertheless, should they all think about who start this war, and who let patent troll see that there is easy free lunch to take? I think when smartphone companies should introspect themselves when they criticize patent troll.

Post 22: Some updates about Apple this week

On Wednesday this week, Germany’s Bundespatentgericht finally ruled in Apple’s favor that invalidated in its entirety the German part of Samsung’s EP1005726 on a “turbo encoding/decoding device and method for processing frame data according to Qos”. Previously, Samsung had declared that the patent was essential to the third generation wireless standard. The ruling is expected to impact on other lawsuits between the Samsung and Apple. Samsung spokesman noted that they would decide whether to proceed with the appeal later. However, since the Germany Federal patent court made the invalidation decision, retrial could be detrimental to Samsung. 

It seems like Apple could take a deep breath; however, a not-so-good news came out on Thursday. A court in Florida declined to ‘mop up a mess’ of multiple claims since the court considered Apple and Motorola have no interest in efficiently resolving their patent lawsuit. Judge Robert Scola stated that both Apple and Motorola greatly expanded the scope of this patent litigation by, among other things, supplementing patent infringement and invalidity contentions. The court denied to give the two companies a case management conference to reduce the size and complexity of the case.

I think I am 100% agree the court’s decision. Everyone has to pay the price for his or her mistakes. Similarly, the tow companies need to mop up the mass they made by themselves instead of wasting taxpayers’ money. I still remember the stunning iPhone press conference six year ago, when Steve Jobs announced to the world:” Apple is reinventing the phone.” I don’t know how many people, like me, noted his sly smile:” Of course, we applied for more than 200 patents to protect that lead for at least five years of mobile phones.” The picture below tells us the impact of iPhone to the smartphone industry.

In order not to let competitors have been enjoying the innovation and technology, Apple tries to use patent as a weapon to block its competitor. However, it is regrettable that Apple’s approach didn’t make any competitor’s products eliminated from the market; instead, some competitors had started to fight back using the similar approach. One of these patent battle centered around Apple's slide to unlock feature, which we talked about last week. Since then, we, as consumers, started to see this endless smartphone patent war. I guess the future smartphone patent war may end in a cross license agreement, but not until the final armistice. It may need to invest more time and money. It seems like Apple start to realize this so they try to simple the lawsuits with Motorola. Although they have not been able to agree on how to accomplish the goal to drop patents and claims, at least, they both have the willing to do so, which is a good starter to settle in my opinion. 

Post 21: Nokia sells patents: Nokia expects a turn

Last weekend, Nokia has sold a block of its patents to the patent holding companying, Pendrell Corp. The sale consists of 125 patents and patent application worldwide, 81 of which have been declared by Nokia to be essential to applicable standards. The aggregate value is more than $12 billion. Pendrell has created a new wholly owned subsidiary, Helsinki Memory Technologies (HMT) to manage the patents. Nokia will receive a license to all of the patents acquired by HMT and to new IP developed by HMT. Nokia has always been the portable, embedded flash technology pioneer in the field of development and evolution of the company. The 125 patent and patent applications that are sold this time are widely used in electronic equipment, involving more than 8000 models of consumer electronic devices; such as mobile phones, laptops, and tablets.  We have to notice that this is the company’s second major sale of patent since last June.

Nokia’s series of action lead me to think of Motorola, the “big brother” in mobile communication industry. However, compared to Nokia, Motorola’s situation is more passive. Is Nokia going to be another Motorola? I hope not. Although Nokia has lost patent, the longstanding cash cow, the huge number funds Nokia get now is very useful for them. If Nokia use it properly, it can make more money through research and development. It would be extremely helpful for the mitigation of the Nokia’s short-term crisis. If Nokia wants to rise again, the most important approach is to explore new content of mobile functionality. Patent won’t save Nokia forever. Nokia’s most serious problems are the wrong judgments in the industry trend and delay in the introduction of new products. Nokia’s current situation should alert some companies that are willing to make money through patent wars. They should keep in mind that innovation is the only approach that would keep the company in the industry.

Post 20: Apple tree falls the crowd push?

On Thursday of this week, Apple’s slide-to-unlock patent was invalidated in Germany. Germany’s Federal Patent Court, Bundespatentgericht, ruled that all claims of EP1964022 on “unlocking a device by performing gestures on an unlock image” are invalid as granted, and additionally held that none of the 14 amendments proposed by Apple could salvage the patent.

This is not the only bad news Apple got. Earlier this week, USPTO gave Apple a hard blow: they did a final judgment on Apple’s “rubber band” feature patent is valid. Although Apple strongly respond that the patent does not run to “death”, the decision from USPTO will have a huge negative impact to Apple since the rejection is to a key patent claim, which has the potential to alter proceedings in Apple vs. Samsung case. Apple accused of more than 20 types of Samsung smartphone and two tablet computers infringe this patent technology.

Apple have done poorly in the recent patent cases, and lost cases in Germany, U.K and Netherland. We all know that Apple is a company that takes a good use of patents to protect themselves and attack rival companies. It seems like no one can stop the pace of Apple patents. They even applied a patent for “rounded rectangle”, which can combat a wide surface of patens. I cannot deny that Apple’s patent war forces more and more mobile phone manufactures to reexamine the importance of patents. They realize that patent is useful, and sometimes, it can even be used as weapons to fight back rivals. Needless to say, Apple gave a bas example in this regard. Apple should be aware that the best way to beat the competition is to develop consumers’ favorite products. Fighting competitor through lawsuit is just part of the game. I think if Apple can’t continue its succeed in iPhone and iPad, then the patent litigation won’t help too much, and Apple will face a daunting challenge. As Steve Job said” “Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” Can Apple rise again after losing Jobs? We’ll see.

Post 19: Apple vs. Samsung: loss at both sides cannot do better than shaking hands

On March 26, Administrative Law Judge, Tomas B. Pender of the United States International Trade Commission (ITC) made an initial determination on demand in the investigation of Apple’s complaint against Samsung. ITC published such information on the official website, but did not open a preliminary detail of the award. However, some people said Judge Pender reaffirmed the original position in the preliminary decision that Samsung violated Apple’s 4 patents. Judge Pender has made the preliminary ruling last October, found that Samsung GALAXY S, GALAXY S II, GALAXY Nexus, GALAXY Tab, Smartphone and Tablet PC products violated Apple’s 3 common patent and 1 design patent. However, in January this year, ITC accepted Samsung’s request to reopen the case. The initial verdict had been scheduled for April 1, but it come out 6 days earlier than originally planned. The final judgment is scheduled for August 1. According to the United States Tariff Act No. 337, ITC can advise the President against importing allegedly infringing products. After the ITC makes its final decision, the President has to decide if he wants to accept the verdict within 60 days. If it is ultimately ruled that Samsung violated Apple’s patents, and the President accepted the result, part of Samsung products cannot enter U.S. market. Since Samsung’s latest products are not involved in this case, and the infringing products can avoid to be banned by developing other technologies, which around Apple technology patents. Thus, it is expected that Samsung’s U.S portfolio will not be affected too much.

In addition, ITC will make the final judgment on the case that Samsung sued Apple infringed it patent on May 31. ITC made an announcement on 13^th of this month postponed the date of the final judgment. It said that it was necessary to learn how much it was going to influence if the allegedly infringing Apple products were banned to the U.S. market. The above statement seems implies that ITC preliminary decision Apple did exist violations; outcome is expected to be conducive to Samsung.

It seems like Samsung will lose the most recent ITC lawsuit. However, patents provide Samsung with a high degree of brand visibility and reputation. In the recent market share, Samsung exceeds 30%, which is on the global top spot, while Apple is only about 14%. Samsung lose the case, but win the market. How can you tell who the winner is? It seems like Apple hopes to against Samsung’s intentions through patent warfare fell, then why Apple initiates the patent war?  Can patent war really play a role against the competitor? I doubt it. I do agree that patent warfare would be a good weapon as long as finding the right target. However, we all know that patent litigation is a long and protracted war. It may last for months or even years which caused immeasurable losses to the parties.  Apple and Samsung’s century patent was lasted form April 2011 till now, complicated protracted litigation is not only affecting the progress of both product development and marketing, but also damage both parties’ corporate image at various degrees. It is worth to notice that although Samsung has won the market share, but lose the lawsuit and pay compensation to Apple; Apple won lawsuits to obtain compensation, but its market share has been left far behind by Samsung. I think patent litigation is more like a double-edged sword, which can effectively protect their own innovation, but the complexity of patent litigation would hinder the pace of innovation in a certain extent. In general, patent wars are unable to separate the real winner, most patent fight lost at both sides. Apparently, it could not be implemented to fight against rivals through patent warfare because it takes a lot of resources, and might not get the ideal result. Thus, instead of losing on both sides, why not shake hands and achieve the win-win situation together. 

Post 18: Apple’s Siri got into Trouble in China

The news from cnet titled “Apple lands in Chinese court to battle Siri patent suit”.  The pretrial was held on Wednesday of this week (PST). The case pits Apple against Zhizhen Network Technology, which claims a patent for the voice-recognition software used by Siri. Zhizhen Network Technology’s claim is related to the patent number ZL200410053749.9 for a chat Robot. The chat robots can receive user statement and give intelligent answers through artificial intelligence server and database. Zhizhen Network believed that, by comparison, Siri on iPhone4S used Zhizhen’s patented network technology illegally, and its implementations fell into the scope of protection of a patent, ZL200410053749.9, for invention. According to Xinhua, Zhizhen Netwrok had sent a letter to Apple trading company and Apple, and tried to resolve this dispute through consultations, but they did not reply. Later on, Zhizhen sued to court, requested Apple immediately stop manufacturing, selling and using any products that infringed patent number ZL200410053749.9.

At the same time, Apple defensed that Zhizhen Network did not clearly descript its patent protection range, which led its franchise protection range undetermined, yet Zhizhen did not provide full effective evidence that proved Siri in iPhone4S fell into its patent right requirements of protection range. Thus, Apple thought two technology features were different and Siri application did not constitute infringement. Apple has mad invalid declaration request, but the Court has not given the permit yet.

I find this case is interesting because this is the first time the “littlee secretary”, Siri, encounter the patent infringement disputes. However, Sir is an essential feature for smartphone, which allows the phone turned into a “talking cellphone”. After Apple’s launch, Siri has become one of Apple’s key product research and development in the future. Siri has been used in many Apple’s new products, such as iPhone5, iPadmini. However, Zhizhen claimed that they committed to the development and application of this technology as early as 2003 and the patented technology has been widely used in Microsoft’s MSN robot, Expo Haibao robot and so on. Actually, Zhizhen started the lawsuit proceeding 3 days after the sale of Apple iPhone 4S; however, since the case involve U.S company, which has to serve through diplomacy. Thus, the case is officially put on schedule recent days.

So far, what seems to be he biggest issue of the case?

I think technical plan comparison will be the big argument between these tow companies. It is said that Siri technology has gotten the international patens, while Zhizhen has applied for patents in China. Since the court is held in China, I think it is really worth to see how the Court judges the case, and which patent law the Court will use. Surprisingly, the plaintiff’s petition did not involve compensation. After reading the whole story, I think compare to infringement, it most likely that these two companies start the voice software invention independently, but they released the technology at different time and location. I believe it did happen to some companies. That’s why I want to share this case. I think the case might become an example for the future similar cases. 

Post 17: Dispute Occurred Once Again – Some News about Nokia

On Tuesday of this week, Nokia won a German patent injunction against HTC. According to FOSSPATENT’s author, Florian Mueller, Mannhein local court found HTC had violated Nokia’s power saving patent, which saves battery life when connected to a network. Nokia could also enforce a sales ban by posting a $6.5 million bond and possess the right to claim damages. At the same time, Nokia said it had asserted the power saving patent against HTC in the UK and the U.S International Trade Commission, with a hearing in the U.S to start in two months.

It seems like the competition between Nokia and HTC escalates. Nokia has collected about 40 HTC’s patent about mobile communication, and claimed that HTC violated Nokia’s intellectual property rights. Earlier this month, the Court has dismissed Nokia’s claim to HTC. Although it seems like Nokia has won this round, it is still hard to tell how much this ruling can change Germany mobile market. Plus, it is still an argument about whether this ruling is a major victory between Nokia and HTC. In HTC’s statement, they claimed the ruling only affected three devices, Wildfire S, Desire S and Rhyme, which were no longer put in the Germany market. HTC also stressed that their Germany business would not be affected by the ruling. At the same time, Nokia has hailed the victory, saying, “HTC must now respect our intellectual property rights and use their own innovation competition.” Mueller believed HTC’s statement was only partially right, and he claimed the infringement relating to these devices is “classic”, but not only these three devices.

I’m not sure if Nokia’s cheer is really about the “respect” they have about intellectual property, or the benefit the intellectual property can bring. I remember earlier this month Nokia filed brief to support Apple’s request to block sale of Samsung products. The reason Nokia gave was that once the precedent had been started, patent holders’ right to request to ban the sale of infringing products would be weakened. Interestingly, Nokia and Apple had a patent dispute in 2011. Nokia ended to pay royalties to Apple. It seems like there is no enemy forever. The companies are willing to corporate in order to maximum the profit. Nevertheless, I think Nokia is overacting on protecting their own patent as Apple. I just feel like Nokia has put too much time concentrate on their patent protection, but ignoring their innovation and advertisement. Comparing to Apple and Samsung, when is your last time to hear any new and excited products from Nokia? Several months ago, a year ago, or maybe longer. Honestly, I can’t remember it myself. It’s true that Nokia holds a lot of good patents, but how long can they live depend on their patent alone. According to the patent law, the patent term is only 20 years from the filing date of the earliest U.S application to which priority is claimed. How many of their patents will be expired in the next few years? I do agree that they should learn from Apple, but not only the way how Apple protect their intellectual properties, but also the way how they invite new devices and advertise to attract costumers.

(Nokia posted this cartoon on Twitter, named "Guess who's who" on the day when Samsung released Galaxy S4)

Nokia, remember you are a big company, but not the king of the market. Please don’t do this kindergarten thing again.