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Ah just what today needed, news of yet another lawsuit flung in the direction Android and its manufacturing partners. This time it’s Microsoft, not at all new to the patent-mincing game, looking in Motorola’s direction for alleged infringement of nine patents in their Android devices. Microsoft is calling to task processes for “synchronizing email, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power,” claiming Moto’s handling of such procedures is in violation of MS’s intellectual property.
While there is a pretty good chance this one will reach an out-of-court settlement, it could also fall into the other column of long, drawn out legal battles. Oh well, guess that’s the route you need to take when you spend your time releasing things like the Microsoft Kin.
Microsoft Files Patent Infringement Action Against Motorola
REDMOND, Wash. – Oct. 1, 2010 – Microsoft Corp. today filed a patent infringement action against Motorola, Inc. and issued the following statement from Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing:
“Microsoft filed an action today in the International Trade Commission and in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington against Motorola, Inc. for infringement of nine Microsoft patents by Motorola’s Android-based smartphones. The patents at issue relate to a range of functionality embodied in Motorola’s Android smartphone devices that are essential to the smartphone user experience, including synchronizing email, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power.
We have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard the billions of dollars we invest each year in bringing innovative software products and services to market. Motorola needs to stop its infringement of our patented inventions in its Android smartphones.”
I’d like to file a lawsuit against Microsoft for that piece of crap they called Vista. It infringed on my laptop’s capabilities. Even with 4GB of RAM, it ran like crap.
This will get settled out of court for some astronomical sum. Move along.
Fuck off Microsoft. You dont innovate shit and WP7 will phail. OOOH xbox integration and a shitty interface, thats what i want in a phone. Get off your knees… I’d rather get an iPhone.
Just proves Android’s growing strength.
@Keller
WOW! You would rather have a iPhone. Wow….geeez. How original! That will show Microsoft. They never heard this battle cry before!
Hey, if its Blur, maybe they will come to an agreement and Motorola will get rid of it…lol
I guess they will be going after HTC next. My understanding was the syncing was done better on HTC devices, so why not go after them first?
Syncing is better on HTC, however Microsoft and HTC are partners and they signed a patent pact earlier this year.
This is a WIN, WIN for HTC…
Anybody remember the agreement HTC has with Microsoft…
http://phandroid.com/2010/04/28/thanks-to-microsoft-android-just-became-more-expensive-for-htc-and-others/
Now MS gets to go after a competitor of HTC… The one competitor that will launch the first GingerBread Dual Core device for X-Max…
I do hope MS makes Moto redo Blur…
@Steven It’s not really a battle cry. It’s the truth. I would honestly rather have an iPhone or even a WebOS phone than another piece of Microsoft garbage. When ChromeOS comes out, I won’t even be using Windows anymore.
I just hope Motorola has the balls to stand up to M$ instead of making a deal like every1 else..
Then we can find out in detail what these supposed patents M$ keeps going on about, remove/change them and get on with stomping winmo into oblivion!!!
@Lewis,
I mean vista had it’s flaws, but I had 64 bit running on my laptop (gaming) and never had any issues. The only problems I’ve seen with it were usually on under powered machines…
However win7 is waaaaaaaaaaaaay better..
So let me get this straight. According to apple no phone can ever be touchable in more than one spot, except the iphone of course. According to Microsoft no phone but theirs can sync information such as e-mail and/or meetings. No …really..our copy rights laws aren’t encouraging baseless lawsuits and killing innovation..really.
LOL! OMG! This is classic! I can’t wait for this to go to court so the patents can be shot down as baseless CRAP!
“synchronizing email, calendars and contacts, scheduling meetings, and notifying applications of changes in signal strength and battery power,”
So in essence Microsoft is saying that Google is doing this as well as HTC? What about Samsung and LG? Apple maybe? This is a freakin’ joke. Steve Ballicker.. just wants the other half of his yearly bonus that he lost due to a failed Kin rollout. So he is gonna do it this way instead of launching a successful product. Fuck Microsoft.
It should be easy to establish prior art for most of these claims. PalmPilots were doing synchronization long before MS had any phones. Motorola could probably use that to get the patents thrown out and MS fined because it’s inconceivable that they were ignorant of such an obvious product.
Microsoft just misses Motorola. They are just nicely asking them to commit to making some Windows 7 phones.
suck my d steven
Oohh, MS and HTC made a deal, I missed that. ALl I remember is Apple trying to seu HTC…
And about Vista, yea I’m running 64bit too and I have no issues either that other ppl have. So much so that I had Win 7 since it came out but havent installed it yet…
@Andy:
I think that might be whats happening.
Never wanted microsoft to win anything before but I would love to see them kick motos ass and put them out of business once and for all.
^It wont happen. I hope it doesnt. I like using a phone that actually works as a phone….
@Roy, I would like to see this as well but doubt it will happen.
Microsoft is too chicken sh!# to sue Google directly.
@elijahblake
BAHAhahahahahahah…….A dual core 4Gig laptop runs twice as fast and uses half as much memory running Win7 compared to Vista.
So spare me your fairytales about underpowered PC’s and how Vista works fine if your PC is fast with lots of memory.
Besides, all the PC power in the world does not make a difference with Vista likes nothing better than to swap to and from the hard drive all day long.
Give me a break. Such a clueless post!
@Roy and @Ace Curry
what do you have against motorola?
Disgusting. I wonder if these companies ever think that whatever they might eventually gain out of these baseless lawsuits will inevitably be outweighed by the negative bad player/loser image this gives them.
MS wants Motorola to support windows 7 mobile. Motorola would probably like to do this.
The problem from Motorola’s side is Motorola has shrunk and has limited resources. It has to put all its eggs in one basket because it can’t afford a second basket. The problem from MS’s side is Motorola has lots of patents in the mobile phone space (having invented cellular) so they don’t really want a counter suit and the bad publicity of a major brand saying “I’m willing to go to court to avoid making a Windows 7 phone”.
My guess is that Motorola ends up making a Windows 7 phone with behind the scenes help from MS (development support and maybe funding). MS isn’t looking for money in the short term – they are looking for market share short term and money long term.
The basic issue with all these phone makers/mobile OS makers is they all have so many patents the ecosystem only really works with detente. If they all enforce their patents, no one will be able to ship anything. I don’t think MS really wants to break this (mostly) tacit agreement – they just want all the major phone makers to build windows 7 phones. If I’m not mistaken, only Motorola is not.
Yeah Larry that makes since. However reading this article has shown me how full oh crap MS is…they have no windows phones that are good and selling well at all anymore…to talk about how serious they are about bringing good phones to people anymore lol Really they suck as a phone OS and they are grabbing at anything they can to stay in the smartphone game
Makes sense I mean lol
God Allmighty, I cant believe I am defending Microsoft, but how do we know what happened or did not happen? Perhaps MS has a legitimate claim. then again, perhaps they are just fishing for position and cash.
If the Android was a failure, MS would likely not bother.
Hey Tod, I worked for Palm, building Pilots – the first models through the Palm VII Wireless and Palm V. Lots of battles most people did not hear about. And a silly one involving Palm Pilot and the Pilot Pen Company.
And you are correct, Palm was doing syncing before MS had a phone. So was (as I recall) Apple with their Newton and a few others.
Bob
I think this is simply MS publicity before the WP7 launch. Unlike HTC and Samsung, Moto has a wealth of patent portfolio and is hard for MS to chew up. I doubt Moto would give in.
if only I had a fraction of a penny for every blue screen of death occurring right now in the world I could buy this guy a supertanker sized cup of shut the hell up dip shit.