War Among Tech Giants
Apple, Microsoft, and others, team up to battle Google, Samsung, and several Android smartphone makers. Headlines on various reports appearing all over the net today are referring to a recently filed action for patent infringement as an all out nuclear war among technology giants. The suit names “Rockstar Bidco” – a group consisting of none other than Apple, Microsoft, RIM, Ericson, and Sony, which have teamed up to battle Google, Samsung, Huawei, Asustek, HTC, LG Electronics, Pantech, and ZTE. Of course, the chosen battleground was the Eastern District of Texas, a jurisdiction widely chosen by patent plaintiffs.
According to various sources, Apple and the others joined forces to form the Rockstar alliance back in 2009 when a Canadian company went bankrupt and sold its patent portfolio to the highest bidder. Although Google itself made a bid for the enormous patent portfolio (comprising some 6,000 patents), it lost to Rockstar with a bid of $4.5 billion.
Several authors, commentators, and interested consumers are pointing out that this type of litigation, also known as “privateering”, really amounts to corporate patent trolling. That this type of corporate war among giants only hurts consumers as prices that the loser has to pay in damages or licensing agreements that yield from these fights, are ultimately passed on to the public. Others simply see it as the way business is conducted among the super-corporations of today.
Interestingly, the lawsuits assert relatively older patents, dating back to the late 1990’s. For example, U.S. Patent No. 5,838,551 (the ‘551 Patent) titled “Electronic Package Carrying Electronic Component and Assembly of Mother Board and Electronic Package” issued in 1998, U.S. Patent No. 6,037,937 (the ’937 Patent) entitled “Navigation Tool for Graphical User Interface” was issued in 2000. More recent patents are asserted as well, however, including U.S. Patent No. 6,937,572 (the ’572 Patent) entitled “Call Trace on a Packet Switched Network”, which issued in 2005.
Naturally, the complaints (here is one, and another) have similar and general allegations; the Samsung complaints states:
[quote align=”justify” color=”#999999″]Samsung has directly and indirectly infringed and continues to directly and indirectly infringe each of the ’551, ’937, ’298, ’973, ’131, ’591, and ’572 Patents by engaging in acts constituting infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(a), (b), (c), and/or (f), including but not necessarily limited to one or more of making, using, selling and offering to sell, in this District and elsewhere in the United States, and importing into this District and elsewhere in the United States, certain mobile communication devices having a version (or an adaption thereof) of Android operating system (“Samsung Mobile Communication Devices”).[/quote]
We will have to wait and see what becomes of this patent war, as the lawsuits are being referred to, but what is sure is that Google is more than likely prepared for battle. In fact, it is known that after losing its bid for the same patents it now has to defend against, Google spent an astonishing $12.5 billion to acquire Motorola Mobility- along with its patent portfolio. Whether it was driven to acquire Motorola in anticipation for this recent move by Rockstar is speculated upon by others in the industry.
More than likely, these patent wars will end in major licensing and settlement negotiations in which the companies involved end up trading rights to use each other’s technologies (for a hefty fee). On the other hand, this could also mean the end of one of the technology giants- guess we’ll have to wait and see.
Sources:
Patent war goes nuclear: Microsoft, Apple-owned “Rockstar” sues Google
Google, Samsung, Huawei sued over Nortel patents
Android under attack: rivals unleash nuclear patent hell against Samsung, Google
Saul Acherman
Attorney at
JAFARI LAW GROUP®, INC.