back to article Microsoft-Motorola patent row: Google wants $4 BEELLION a year

Google has suggested that Microsoft should pay around $4bn a year for the wireless and video patents of Motorola that Redmond uses in its Xbox and Surface fondleslab. An expert witness at the trial, originally between Microsoft and Motorola but now including new Motorola Mobility owner Google, testified that Microsoft would …

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    1. Martin 47

      Re: I don't like this story.

      Happily I am not particularly keen on either company

    2. Hardcastle the ancient

      subtle

      re-used posting makes clever link to other story. Snide.

  1. billium
    Mushroom

    The lawyers are the winners, and we all pay.

    Android users don't get their $5 back and the 235 patents are still not revealed.

    But I hope Google beat the vile monopolist.

    1. dogged

      You hope the desktop monopolist gets beaten by the advertising monopolist?

      1. Robert Grant
        Happy

        "You hope the desktop monopolist gets beaten by the advertising monopolist?"

        Of course. Otherwise the wrong lizard might get in

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    With apologies to the J. Geils Band.....

    You sue her....

    And she sues him....

    And he sues somebody else....

    We just can't win!!

    And so it goes until the day we die....

    This thing we call IP is gonna' make us cry!!

    (And please don't sue me for this parody!!)

  3. MissingSecurity

    I apparently need a better calculator...

    Cause mine doesn't come with a BS function..

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Lay off the crack pipe

    Fandroids and Gigglerolla Pom Pom girls...

    1. Ben Tasker
      Joke

      Re: Lay off the crack pipe

      Gigglerolla Pom Pom Girls

      Pics or it didn't happen

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    4 Beeelion???!

    Thank god google has stopped it's silly shenanigans of monetary figures based on Pi and other nonsense.

  6. Herby

    Microsoft V. Google is like

    (Sorry for invoking Godwin's Law) Hitler V. Stalin. You really want both of them to lose, so you don't know who to really root for.

    The best possible outcome for this is to have "method patents" disallowed. Then we can all go home and worry about more pressing issues.

    1. h4rm0ny

      Re: Microsoft V. Google is like

      "The best possible outcome for this is to have "method patents" disallowed. Then we can all go home and worry about more pressing issues"

      I agree in a lot of cases. But some method patents are valid. Or at least it's a supportable argument that they are. In this case we're talking about video encoding. A great deal or work, imagination and cleverness can go into working out a new way of compressing images into video - thinking of ways that you can record only changes between two images for example. MPEG-4 has methods by which it checks forward and backward to reference frames, adjusts for motion blur and all kinds of things. It's a lot of work. And yet when that work is done, you could independently implement it relatively easily in different languages or platforms. Should the people who worked hard on developing those solutions not be recompensed because copyright does not cover it?

      1. Vic

        Re: Microsoft V. Google is like

        > But some method patents are valid.

        I don't see many fitting into that category...

        > A great deal or work, imagination and cleverness can go into working out a new way of compressing images

        It can do, but most of that is grunt work; working out how to tune well-known algorithms to fit the sort of sequence you are expecting.

        > MPEG-4 has methods by which it checks forward and backward to reference frames

        So do most video compressors. That was old hat when I got into the industry. Even if it were patentable originally, that ship has long sailed.

        > It's a lot of work.

        It is[1]. But it's not a lot of *invention*. And patents cover invention, not sweat-of-the-brow labour.

        > Should the people who worked hard on developing those solutions not be recompensed

        They *are* being recompensed; the purpose of these standards is to sell encoding and decoding equipment. Standards are required to ensure that the market for such devices exists.

        If I lay a road, that's a lot of work. Should you have to pay me for every journey you make over that road?

        Vic.

        [1] I did a fair amount of that work...

    2. Hardcastle the ancient

      Godwin? are you sure?

      I thought Stalin cancelled Hitler, leaving a null result?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    1. Google get awarded X for their patents

    2. Microsoft counter-sue and get awarded Y for their patents (where Y is remarkably close to X)

    3. Microsoft and Google end up paying pittances to each other since X and Y more less cancel each other out

    4. Any new comer would have to pay X to google and Y to Microsoft...endgame

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