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For more than three years now, Microsoft has held to the line that it has loads of patents that are infringed by Google's Android operating system. "Licensing is the solution," wrote the company's head IP honcho in 2011, explaining Microsoft's decision to sue Barnes & Noble's Android-powered Nook reader.
Microsoft has revealed a few of those patents since as it has unleashed litigation against Android device makers. But for the most part, they've remained secret. That's led to a kind of parlor game where industry observers have speculated about what patents Microsoft might be holding over Android.
That long guessing game is now over. A list of hundreds of patents that Microsoft believes entitle it to royalties over Android phones, and perhaps smartphones in general, has been published on a Chinese language website.
More details are in the story, but too much to include in this summary.
(Score: 2) by evilviper on Tuesday June 17 2014, @08:14AM
I don't know... Where did you read "secret patent"? It's not in the title, summary, or in the body of TFA.
All three mention a "secret list of", but nowhere did anyone mention secret patents.
Hydrogen cyanide is a delicious and necessary part of the human diet.
(Score: 2) by physicsmajor on Tuesday June 17 2014, @01:56PM
Briefly, MS has truckloads of patents to its name. A brief search of patents.google.com revealed approximately 13.6 million results.
Yes, all of these are public. Technically. Though many are so obfuscated by design that they hardly serve their purpose, i.e., that of informing the public about the invention so it can be reproduced once the patent expires. Many of them are also objectively bullshit and unpatentable, but they got through the system and MS avoids having them challenged in the light of day. They're secret nukes, and if you fight to get them invalidated MS throws their cash at lawyers to make sure you get destroyed. Assured fiscal destruction for the noble attacker; a drop in the bucket for MS. So these things generally go unchallenged.
It turns out that MS has a subset of these - exactly what the subset consists of, they are not interested in disclosing publicly - which they believe Android infringes. Generally the extortion scheme works like this: Go to Android vendor. Cite an inflated number of bullshit patents you believe their product infringes. Oh, no, you can't see the actual list! But, realize what happened to that other guy (see above paragraph & the Samsung v. Apple farce of a trial).
So in this context it isn't so much the contents of the patent(s) that are a secret, but the identity of which patents in their portfolio MS "believes" you infringe. This gives MS an asymmetric information advantage, because your legal team literally cannot advise you if their complaints are bullshit or not. Such asymmetric information should be flatly illegal in the context of patent disputes - it is repugnant to the very nature of the system - but when hit with this shit most companies fold. The downside is effectively infinite, while the upside means at best a protracted and essentially infinite legal battle. Ergo, most choose the protection money.
Fuck software patents.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 17 2014, @04:21PM
In this context there is no difference. There's
no such thing as a secret patent and, because of the nature of how patents work, there's no such thing as a secret list of patents that infringe on whatever. You're buying this because you hate patents and Microsoft, love Android, and see China as the Romulan Empire and as such love when they point out a good conspiracy.
Put down your snarkiness for a moment and open your eyes. *You* personally could have found the infringing patents.
(Score: 2) by Foobar Bazbot on Tuesday June 17 2014, @08:23PM
Could I have, really?
Suppose I can examine one patent every 6 minutes, or 10 per hour. Moreover, suppose I am so desperate to find the complete list of infringed patents that I dedicate the equivalent of a fulltime job, 40 hours per week, to it. I can examine 20800 patents per year.
Since Microsoft seems to have only 136000 patents [google.com] (about 200 of which are claimed to pertain to Android), it'll take me a mere 6.5 years.
Since, AFAIK, it wasn't until 2010 that Microsoft started discussing this list of patents allegedly infringed by Android phones, and it hasn't been 6.5 years since then, it doesn't look like I could have found the complete list yet.
(I anxiously await your reply assuring me that I not only could, but should be expected to (a) examine patents in an average of 3-4 minutes, without missing any, or (b) spend 60-80 hours a week on it.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 17 2014, @08:58PM