Displaying items by tag: Patent

Although the news of Google’s purchase of Motorola Mobility is days old we have to wonder about the slew of articles that have come out recently. We all know (whether we choose to admit it or not) that the purchase of Motorola was to bolster Google position in the market of the mobile OS. They, like others, have a lot to fear from Apple’s seemingly endless supply of accusations of copying, patent infringement and friendly venues. However, the deal is more than that in reality.

Motorola has an 82 year legacy of working with wireless (not the wireless we think of today but radios as well).  Because of this they not only have a nice stable of patents but also the technology and the innovation to survive in the cut throat world of mobile devices. The problem has been their “IBM” attitude in the past. Anyone that knows (or would like to Google) the IBM culture will know that the uniform was black slacks, white button down and tie. This is what you wore no matter where you worked. Motorola was the same way until very recently. That kind of rigidity in your culture does stifle innovation to a great degree. After all if you always wear the same thing, you can find yourself always thinking the same things. People that are locked down by their environment can become stagnant and, in extreme cases, ineffective.

So adding the fresh and open culture of Google to this can help out the struggling Motorola quite a bit; while the structure of Motorola may also help Google. It also gives Google something they want and need; a direct market for their OS. Google has been slowly closing the “Open Source” of Android with each successive release and we are looking at a completely closed source Kernel and OS in the very near future. Although Google invites other phone makers to use and customize Android’s UI they still want to have phones of their very own and with Motorola’s $86 Million dollar loss on top of their still popular “Droid” line of smart phones I am sure this looked like a ready-made situation for Google.

Motorola does get to keep operating as its own entity (for now) but you can rest assured that Google is also banking on those nice new Patents to keep Apple’s lawyers at bay.

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In news that surprises no one HTC has filed a complaint and suit against Apple today for… you guessed it Patent Infringement. All of this began not too long ago when Apple started its campaign against Android Phone makers claiming that Samsung, HTC and a few others have violated Apple’s patents on various functions and even the look and feel of their method of finger scrolling. Apple has one the first round in many of these cases, but things seem to be turning around.

It has recently come to light that Apple’s evidence in the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 case is inaccurate. Apple’s legal team knowingly or accidentally submitted false evidence to show that the Tab was a copy of the iPad and iPad2. We do not know the outcome of this incident yet (but we are keeping our eyes open) but it is probably not going to be good for Apple.

Meanwhile HTC has just announced that it is filing its own patent suit against Apple that covers not only the iPad, iPhone and iPod but also every MAC computer with wireless technology that has “Wi-Fi capability that allows users to wirelessly network multiple devices at home, at work, or in public” as covered by US Patent 7,417,944. There is more to the complaint and suit which covers three specific patents (U.S. Patent Nos. 7,417,944, and 7,672,219 and 7,765,414). This is interesting as HTC has not even broken out their S3 Patents yet. These patents came from a purchase of ADC Telecommunications Patents back in April of this year that cover many wireless and even 4G technologies. ADC was later bought by Tyco Electronics (which became TE Connectivity) who sold its wireless communication division to Harris Corp.

Now think about this, if the ADC Telecommunications patents do not cut it they can always push for action based on the new S3 Patents HTC has recently picked up. As we said a couple of days ago; things are getting rather interesting.

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