Nokia wins in Qualcomm case
Nokia has won a limited victory in its long-running court battle with Qualcomm. The US International Trade Commission has ruled that Nokia is not infringing Qualcomm patents relating to its 3G phones. The victory means the International Trade Commission will not ban the importing of Nokia handsets into the United States. The …
But wouldn't it just make simple common sense that any company participating in a standards body or similar group that essentially requires disclosure of any held patents. That and signing a waiver for use of any relevant patents that may be involved.
Patent laws suck enough, and I still smile everytime I reread any SCO article. But then again when you live in a society that believes in instant satisfaction, something for nothing, and nothing is ever your fault, what do you expect.
.... that patent rights have to be disclosed and asserted from the day the patent is granted. This would kill most submarine patents and certainly would knobble these "standards" patents since failure to disclose them on submission to the patents process would invalidate any action based on the use as a standard.
My dad used to cut the lawn with a Qualcomm product?
Hey ho... they must be very different these days
Getting patents hooked to standards has been successfully employed by many. MS FAT and SmartMedia; Bosch CAN and J1939/ISO1184 etc etc.
Standards bodies that try to apply patent waivers generally don't work in the electronics industry. The patent holders tend to be the bigger players and if they don't sign up then the standards body becomes a huddle of second-tier players that are ignored by the major players.
Wasn't GSM instituted specifically to avoid Qualcomm's patents? Something about Qualcomm not wanting to share...
Anyway, I agree that patents are ridiculous. Patent squatters can tie up useful work and innovation for years. Hey, wasn't there a line in the Constitution...never mind.
The RAMBus debacle is a joke. They first went to JEDEC, signed all the agreements, agreed to license patents at 0 royalty, etc. They pulled out later, then sprung their patent trap. Absolute B.S.
RamBus should not exist today. They should be broken up, their officers never allowed to sit on a board again, in the U.S., and their offices sold to the Whole Foods down the street, or maybe turn it into another Starbucks. Nah, better just leave it vacant. It'll blend in better with all of the other vacant property in the Valley.
Surely anytime you develop a chip to work with a protocol it will end up similar to your competitors?
As an example, I don't remember modem companies suing each other years ago. They just made their product and spent their time marketing and selling, not competing by trying to undermine the competition.
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