God God...
What moron granted EP1312974?? Its a complete pile of donkey crap.
Nokia has lost a patent-infringement lawsuit it brought against rival phone-maker HTC. Nokia was upset about the way HTC's Android phones talked to Google app stores, claiming the communication ripped off its protected technologies. A German court ruled HTC did not infringe the Nokia-owned patent EP0812120 – called the ’120 …
Nokia always had a ruthless streak. Even before Elop they did all they could to screw up other Symbian manufacturers and destroy the competing UIQ platform. In spite of the media ignorance, Symbian was not developed by Nokia. It was developed by Psion. So they were always a bit like Microsoft. Their success was never based on break-through innovation but in commercial savvy and ruthlessness.
"Their success was never based on break-through innovation but in commercial savvy and ruthlessness."
Don't get it. I thought being 'ruthless' and 'savvy' was how you made money, and became competetive nowadays.
Oh, well. What do I know.
This describes an auto-brightness function based on ambient light levels being detected and used to control display brightness. I remember back in the late '70s there was a medical ultrasonic scanner display (monochrome CRT) that had this feature, and the auto-brightness control was included in all the backlit controls and indicators of the scanner system. It had additional sophistication in that there was a small test patch of light-grey level in the lower corner of the screen that was covered by a light sensor and used as part of the control - hence it could take into account any tube ageing and possible different characteristics of a replacement tube.
No matter how clever you think you are, somebody has probably done it before but not made a song and dance about it. I have no idea how that patent could have been awarded to Nokia.
As for the communication with the Google Play Store, that sounds like internet communications and 'clever' software. Enough said.
Patent trolls are generally non-practicing entities (NPEs) and/or those who go after companies that can't afford to defend themselves. Yes, on the surface (I didn't look deeper) the patents are questionable but they were granted and Nokia uses the technology in question.
Please let's not add "patent troll" to the list of terms that is over used and loses all meaning.
But if you apply it to non-patent trolls then it makes patents not only hard to enforce for small companies but bloody risky too. If a small company took a big one to court and lost then they could probably be looking at serious financial problems unless the judge takes that into account.
"But if you apply it to non-patent trolls then it makes patents not only hard to enforce for small companies but bloody risky too. If a small company took a big one to court and lost then they could probably be looking at serious financial problems unless the judge takes that into account."
Not really. The judge does look at what the legal expenses are. If you have a small company that had one lawyer, the bigger company couldn't say that they had 50 lawyers working on this case at $1,000 an hour for the past six months. Judges look at reasonable expenses.
In the case of Nokia, I would rather they didn't. Have you seen how bad the Lumias are, I know somone that almost accidently bought one the other day (The Lumias were recalled by Nokia for reasons unknown, and they got an Xperia T in the end, so it was a very close escape)