That does not mean anything. Yes MS may have asked Google to partner with them to buy the patents but no-one knows what the terms were. A good attorney can make an agreement that allows Google to be sued on the patents even if they are co-owners. Or the agreement may say that any Android phone manufacturer can be sued on the patents by Microsoft, and Google does not have the power to give those manufacturers licenses.
So an undisclosed offer made in private does not mean much. If Microsoft had made their offer public they may use it to make a point, but as things stand now this supposed offer is best ignored.
PS: I should also note that this "we made them a generous offer and they refused" statement is a trick often used by PR people and politicians to muddy the water.
This was MSFT offering for google to talk about joining in the bidding. Google turned them down without knowing what the terms were, because the terms hadn't even been discussed. This was an offer to talk, not an offer of terms.
Google has been caught with its senior counsel telling a blatant lie, in public. I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see people trying to spin it so hard...
This new information is quite helpful for me. It reaffirms my assessment that this is all about PR and I shouldn’t believe anyone. Microsoft’s motives aren’t pure, Google’s motives aren’t pure but that’s kinda obvious, isn’t it?
(By the way, we do not know whether or not Google and Microsoft were already talking about conditions, we don’t know what those conditions were. You seem to base your assessment on information we don’t have.)
MSFT only invited them and Google turned them down flat. So there was not negative agreement that you are clearly inventing. Obvious that would be a raw deal, thanks for assuming that it would go that way.
Just so you know, 99% of business is not done for hristov or anyone else on HN's benefit. Inter business deals are usually negotiated in private. Especially if it was a preliminary offer.
Ex-MSFT employee here, enjoying the fact that I can comment on HN on MSFT legal affairs for once :).
I love Frank.X.Shaw's move here (hiring him from Waggner Edstorm was one of MSFT's best moves). Google is essentially trying to spin a situation where they were invited to be a part of a bid as a anti-competitive move. I'm slightly surprised that Google didn't see this coming - Drummond must have known that any public spat would lead to MSFT digging up any email threads between the two companies, especially those which make it seem like MSFT is trying to reach out to Google.
These accusations are almost like patent bids. Google strikes first but Microsoft wins.
Also, Google made the first move with this type of grievance. They have the luxury of setting the tone and ensuring that all other parties only have a chance to defend themselves rather than achieve anything greater than when this all started.
No matter what PR spin anyone puts on it Microsoft is a destructive parasite in the smartphone marketplace. Extorting money out of android manufacturers after it failed to compete is one of the most disgusting spectacles I've seen in the industry.
Only problem with that is that others remember the substance of the emails as well.. MS wanted to set it up so that prior Nortel terms to any patent in the bid was upheld in any royalty agreement irregardless of bankruptcy..Google wanted something else.
I am confused. Why would Google want to jointly bid on patents in a way they could not be used to protect itself and its partners from Microsoft?
Microsoft's council can't be so naïve.
Edit: by refusing to participate, Google indicated that either they wanted the patents in order to be able to defend against Microsoft or that they didn't find them worth the effort. The proposal could pretty much be the way Microsoft used to measure Google's interest and intentions
While you are almost certainly correct you are missing the point about Google's blog post. The lawyer who wrote is demonstrably lying about the situation.
"They’re doing this by banding together to acquire Novell’s old patents (the “CPTN” group including Microsoft and Apple) and Nortel’s old patents (the “Rockstar” group including Microsoft and Apple), to make sure Google didn’t get them;"
If Google was offered a chance to bid along with Microsoft, how is Microsoft trying to make sure Google didn't get them? While it may not have been in Google's best interest to partner with Microsoft, they can hardly argue in good faith that Microsoft is trying to withhold those patents from Google in some sort of conspiracy.
The Microsoft tweets seem to (probably intentionally) ignore the obvious reason why Google would want the patents — to create a mutually-assured destruction scenario that convinces Apple and Microsoft to get off its back. Sharing the patents with Apple and Microsoft would keep Google at a disadvantage just like not having them would.
Indeed, the patents used for defense have to be different from the patents you are attacked with. Sharing patents means they can't attack you with those, but if they have a lot more other patents, you still aren't protected.
Google seems to have one foot in the water and the other out. They lose their credibility either way. They bid a high amount ($3.14bil) in the Nortel bid and went alone by their choosing in the Novell bid. Their press is just spinning the story AND their strategy based on unforeseen outcomes. I get it that they are using patents just as leverage to keep Android free or as cheap as possible. In the end however, they are competing with other mobile platforms for market share based on the best combination of price, quality, and user experience. It's anyone's game and as long as it's legal, there are no rules.
I don't remember exactly if at their last bid they were alone, but one thing I recall to have read is that at least at one point they did bid teaming along with Intel.
Mobile companies such as HTC, Motorla and Samsung are being forced to pay Microsoft licensing fees for their Android phones because of patents Microsoft owns. Google needs its own arsenal of patents in order to prevent the situation from getting worse. How is Android supposed to prosper if mobile companies are being forced to pay Microsoft to use it? Owning the patents jointly with Microsoft gives Google nothing to use against Microsoft, therefore defeating the whole purpose of owning the patents.
His post doesn't address this - Google bidding alongside MSFT and winning on these patents would have taken these patents off the table as far as any future litigation goes, basically making these one less set of patents for either Google or MSFT to worry about.
Does he expect MSFT to somehow help Google build a defensive portfolio against it?
I think the take home message of all of this, more than ever, is that software patents are damaging to innovation and an overall detriment to the industry.
These companies should be competing on performance and features, not with lawyers over whether a linked list is an innovation (example taken out of context, but some of these patents are no better than the multiply linked list patent covered a year ago).
I posit that android would not be on the market in the touch-screen form it is now, if Apple hadn't made its inventions public due to the patent process.
If you consider android innovative, then the patent process saved google the 7+ years Apple spent developing the iPhone and allowed them to get to the market much quicker with a touch screen phone (they'd been previously working on a blackberry style OS for android.)
I am the inventor of two software patents. One of which involved solving the visual glitches that appear in online games due to the high latency of playing over a modem. This patent involved a lot of timing issues, and was pretty narrow.
However it was claimed on slashdot that we "patented the idea of online gaming!!!!"
Later, in a discussion list, they claimed we'd patented the idea of IRC!
People seem to presume that patents are on ideas, and that people are patenting really obvious ideas.
In the case of the patents I've been involved in, that is not what has happened. In fact, the portrayal of what was covered by the patent didn't match the patent at all, and it is clear that the people putting forward those patents as examples of bad patents were, frankly misrepresenting them.
Every time I've seen a bogus patent claim and actually read the patent, I've found this to be the case as well. (I don't remember the linked-list example, so haven't read that particular one.)
I'm not saying that bogus patents don't exist. I'm sure you can get things by the examiner.
But the system has a solution for this-- if your patent is bogus then it won't stand up in court. If prior art exists, then you run the risk of spending a lot of money, only to have the patent nullified when someone presents prior art. (And I mean real prior art, not the kind of stuff that people claim is prior art, like the claim that IRC is prior art for solving clock jitter in 3D online games)
The patent system, as with anything else that relies on the meager US court system, is expensive... but there is no need for reform, that I can see, as all these allegedly bogus patents would be quickly thrown out if they really were as obvious as is claimed and if there really was the abundance of prior art, as is claimed.
Google is certainly capable, both financially and intellectually, of getting a bogus patent thrown out. There's no reason they should be calling on the federal government to intervene with a political "solution" on their behalf... unless they know that there isn't actually prior art and the patents are, in fact, legitimate.
In fact, I think googles call for reform is an admission that the patents aren't bogus after all.
Edit: I didn't change the text above, but want to clarify- I'm responsible for some claims on one of these patents, though not named as an inventor (I didn't realize the significance at the time.) For the other I am the sole inventor, but it hasn't been brought forth as "bogus" in a public forum yet, though, for those who don't read it carefully, they could easily make the claim. This is why I'm being vague about the specific patents. Previous experience on Hacker News tells me that if I wasn't vague the topic would turn to how those patents are so obviously "bogus" (to people who haven't read more than the headline)... and well, frankly my name is on them. I really don't to be discriminated against in business for having a pr-intellectual property position. The current climate makes that fear seem pretty legitimate.
"Sorry Google but we offered to collude with you and you turned us down, so we had to collude against you"
Is this how rotten Microsoft has become? They don't even grasp what they are being accused of.
EDIT: I really wish people would reply with their opinion rather than just downvoting. Or at least do both. I thought it was an interesting observation that I haven't seen anyone make: Google complains about Microsoft's ethics and they respond with a point about strategy. Do they even understand the difference?
More like, joint bidders had a greater chance of getting the bounty, Google chose to ignore Microsoft's proposal. Apple took them up on the offer.
That's how childish Google has become (or rather their legal and PR teams).
I think you have failed to grasp what was said. It's not an "interesting observation", it's about as fundamental a misinterpretation as you can get.
Unless you are suggesting that Google didn't know why the others were bidding on patents in the first place, in which case you have to tell us why Google was bidding at all.
You're being down voted because you missed the point. Google's lawyer was claiming that Microsoft was banding together with rivals to damage them, but Microsoft has revealed that they actually offered to team up with Google, and Google refused because they wanted the patents for themselves.
A lot of people are giving Google the benefit of the doubt for their motivations in bidding on the patents (hey, it's pro-Google territory around here, I get that), but the point of this article is that Google's blog post was a lie. They were trying to portray a pattern of behavior on Microsoft's part by which they team up with competitors against Google, yet it turns out Microsoft actually offered to bid with Google.
Not really. Google needs these patents to protect themselves from suits by MS and Apple, how could they make a cross-licensing deal if they co-owned these patents with the very companies they are trying to protect themselves against?
Google says the group of major players colluding together in a joint bid for patents is anti-competitive. Google did not want to join this anti-competitive collusion. How is this inconsistent, shocking, or bad?
Couldn't the simple explanation be "If we join forces with Microsoft and Apple to jointly buy these patents, the DoJ is going to come down on all of us for illegal anti-competitive behavior"? Why are people acting like Google did something wrong by not wanting to join the cartel that they are now publicly saying is anti-competitive and that the DoJ should impose limits on?
One interesting possibility: Google planned to only use the patents defensively but the joint bid would have required them participating in offensive action, which they refuse to do.
Doesn't this suggest that MS tried to organize a cartel to put a lock on the wireless industry? The major players all coming together to purchase patent portfolios and agreeing not to sue each other over it sure smells like an anti-trust violation.
Google is saying Microsoft et al bought the Novell patents to keep Google from having access to them. Google is trying to imply that this is so the patents can be used against Google.
Microsoft is pointing out that Google was offered a chance to be part of the buying group. That would have given Google access to them and precluded them being used against Google. This makes it very likely that the buying group was in fact buying the patents for defensive purposes, rather than to go after Google.
In two large organizations A and B, how likely is it that someone at B can find an email from a person at A to a person at B that appears to contradict some assertion by some other person at A?
These behind the scenes emails raise a question in my mind. On what other issues these companies are covertly colluding with each other which we don't know. One obvious thing could be some kind of silent agreement on not competing with each other on employee salaries etc. to keep them in check. There could be more like trying not to increase valuations of startups they are trying to acquire.
Is it really covert? In the case of the Nortel bids, the bidders were getting government approval before bidding, and it was made public after the fact who was in the groups.
I'm not sure that removing anonymity from bidders is a good thing or not. I mean, if you know who the other bidders are, that would affect your strategy, removing some purity from the auction process, wouldn't it?
But, maybe you feel I'm sidestepping your real issue, so let me make another point:
In any situation where companies might collude like this, they're effectively creating a cartel. Say, in the case of the employee salaries that you mention.
The problem with a cartel is that there is always an incentive for a member of the cartel to violate the agreement. For instance, if MSFT, Apple, Facebook and Google agreed to cap software developer salaries, then Google (or one of the others) has an incentive to secretly violate that agreement to get the best employees, right?
Pretty soon the cartel falls apart, or the agreement has no effect. The stronger the agreement, the more incentive there is to violate it.
Further, imagine if they were successful and kept salaries below a market rate-- this would give a huge boost to any of their competitors who were willing to pay market rates, right?
They'd only be shooting themselves in the foot by doing so, driving the best employees to other companies.
This is why cartels don't really work, or at least aren't sustainable for very long.
Google is going to need to hire a lot more lawyers these days... anti-trust inquiries against themselves, weak patent portfolio... Gonna be really interesting to watch.
[+] [-] hristov|14 years ago|reply
So an undisclosed offer made in private does not mean much. If Microsoft had made their offer public they may use it to make a point, but as things stand now this supposed offer is best ignored.
PS: I should also note that this "we made them a generous offer and they refused" statement is a trick often used by PR people and politicians to muddy the water.
[+] [-] econgeeker|14 years ago|reply
This was MSFT offering for google to talk about joining in the bidding. Google turned them down without knowing what the terms were, because the terms hadn't even been discussed. This was an offer to talk, not an offer of terms.
Google has been caught with its senior counsel telling a blatant lie, in public. I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see people trying to spin it so hard...
[+] [-] ugh|14 years ago|reply
(By the way, we do not know whether or not Google and Microsoft were already talking about conditions, we don’t know what those conditions were. You seem to base your assessment on information we don’t have.)
[+] [-] 2muchcoffeeman|14 years ago|reply
Who said that? I cannot find that in the tweet or the article.
[+] [-] napierzaza|14 years ago|reply
MSFT only invited them and Google turned them down flat. So there was not negative agreement that you are clearly inventing. Obvious that would be a raw deal, thanks for assuming that it would go that way.
Just so you know, 99% of business is not done for hristov or anyone else on HN's benefit. Inter business deals are usually negotiated in private. Especially if it was a preliminary offer.
[+] [-] sriramk|14 years ago|reply
I love Frank.X.Shaw's move here (hiring him from Waggner Edstorm was one of MSFT's best moves). Google is essentially trying to spin a situation where they were invited to be a part of a bid as a anti-competitive move. I'm slightly surprised that Google didn't see this coming - Drummond must have known that any public spat would lead to MSFT digging up any email threads between the two companies, especially those which make it seem like MSFT is trying to reach out to Google.
[+] [-] orky56|14 years ago|reply
Also, Google made the first move with this type of grievance. They have the luxury of setting the tone and ensuring that all other parties only have a chance to defend themselves rather than achieve anything greater than when this all started.
[+] [-] guelo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shareme|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rbanffy|14 years ago|reply
Microsoft's council can't be so naïve.
Edit: by refusing to participate, Google indicated that either they wanted the patents in order to be able to defend against Microsoft or that they didn't find them worth the effort. The proposal could pretty much be the way Microsoft used to measure Google's interest and intentions
[+] [-] thoughtsimple|14 years ago|reply
"They’re doing this by banding together to acquire Novell’s old patents (the “CPTN” group including Microsoft and Apple) and Nortel’s old patents (the “Rockstar” group including Microsoft and Apple), to make sure Google didn’t get them;"
If Google was offered a chance to bid along with Microsoft, how is Microsoft trying to make sure Google didn't get them? While it may not have been in Google's best interest to partner with Microsoft, they can hardly argue in good faith that Microsoft is trying to withhold those patents from Google in some sort of conspiracy.
[+] [-] chc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MikeCapone|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bonch|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] orky56|14 years ago|reply
Edited the Nortel and Novell discrepancy.
[+] [-] doe88|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jigs_up|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akkartik|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sriramk|14 years ago|reply
Does he expect MSFT to somehow help Google build a defensive portfolio against it?
[+] [-] tensor|14 years ago|reply
These companies should be competing on performance and features, not with lawyers over whether a linked list is an innovation (example taken out of context, but some of these patents are no better than the multiply linked list patent covered a year ago).
[+] [-] econgeeker|14 years ago|reply
If you consider android innovative, then the patent process saved google the 7+ years Apple spent developing the iPhone and allowed them to get to the market much quicker with a touch screen phone (they'd been previously working on a blackberry style OS for android.)
I am the inventor of two software patents. One of which involved solving the visual glitches that appear in online games due to the high latency of playing over a modem. This patent involved a lot of timing issues, and was pretty narrow.
However it was claimed on slashdot that we "patented the idea of online gaming!!!!"
Later, in a discussion list, they claimed we'd patented the idea of IRC!
People seem to presume that patents are on ideas, and that people are patenting really obvious ideas.
In the case of the patents I've been involved in, that is not what has happened. In fact, the portrayal of what was covered by the patent didn't match the patent at all, and it is clear that the people putting forward those patents as examples of bad patents were, frankly misrepresenting them.
Every time I've seen a bogus patent claim and actually read the patent, I've found this to be the case as well. (I don't remember the linked-list example, so haven't read that particular one.)
I'm not saying that bogus patents don't exist. I'm sure you can get things by the examiner.
But the system has a solution for this-- if your patent is bogus then it won't stand up in court. If prior art exists, then you run the risk of spending a lot of money, only to have the patent nullified when someone presents prior art. (And I mean real prior art, not the kind of stuff that people claim is prior art, like the claim that IRC is prior art for solving clock jitter in 3D online games)
The patent system, as with anything else that relies on the meager US court system, is expensive... but there is no need for reform, that I can see, as all these allegedly bogus patents would be quickly thrown out if they really were as obvious as is claimed and if there really was the abundance of prior art, as is claimed.
Google is certainly capable, both financially and intellectually, of getting a bogus patent thrown out. There's no reason they should be calling on the federal government to intervene with a political "solution" on their behalf... unless they know that there isn't actually prior art and the patents are, in fact, legitimate.
In fact, I think googles call for reform is an admission that the patents aren't bogus after all.
Edit: I didn't change the text above, but want to clarify- I'm responsible for some claims on one of these patents, though not named as an inventor (I didn't realize the significance at the time.) For the other I am the sole inventor, but it hasn't been brought forth as "bogus" in a public forum yet, though, for those who don't read it carefully, they could easily make the claim. This is why I'm being vague about the specific patents. Previous experience on Hacker News tells me that if I wasn't vague the topic would turn to how those patents are so obviously "bogus" (to people who haven't read more than the headline)... and well, frankly my name is on them. I really don't to be discriminated against in business for having a pr-intellectual property position. The current climate makes that fear seem pretty legitimate.
[+] [-] extension|14 years ago|reply
Is this how rotten Microsoft has become? They don't even grasp what they are being accused of.
EDIT: I really wish people would reply with their opinion rather than just downvoting. Or at least do both. I thought it was an interesting observation that I haven't seen anyone make: Google complains about Microsoft's ethics and they respond with a point about strategy. Do they even understand the difference?
[+] [-] amartya916|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] epo|14 years ago|reply
Unless you are suggesting that Google didn't know why the others were bidding on patents in the first place, in which case you have to tell us why Google was bidding at all.
[+] [-] Toady|14 years ago|reply
A lot of people are giving Google the benefit of the doubt for their motivations in bidding on the patents (hey, it's pro-Google territory around here, I get that), but the point of this article is that Google's blog post was a lie. They were trying to portray a pattern of behavior on Microsoft's part by which they team up with competitors against Google, yet it turns out Microsoft actually offered to bid with Google.
[+] [-] sek|14 years ago|reply
A bidding with Microsoft wouldn't make sense at all.
[+] [-] jdp23|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] myko|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jarin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yalurker|14 years ago|reply
Couldn't the simple explanation be "If we join forces with Microsoft and Apple to jointly buy these patents, the DoJ is going to come down on all of us for illegal anti-competitive behavior"? Why are people acting like Google did something wrong by not wanting to join the cartel that they are now publicly saying is anti-competitive and that the DoJ should impose limits on?
[+] [-] aaronsw|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blinkingled|14 years ago|reply
"Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no."
So Google may still have a point that Nortel patents were gobbled up by Apple and MSFT to strangle Android just as the Novell ones are.
[+] [-] Hyena|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Joakal|14 years ago|reply
Or am I misunderstanding this article?
[+] [-] tzs|14 years ago|reply
Microsoft is pointing out that Google was offered a chance to be part of the buying group. That would have given Google access to them and precluded them being used against Google. This makes it very likely that the buying group was in fact buying the patents for defensive purposes, rather than to go after Google.
[+] [-] ditojim|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ams6110|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] g123g|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] econgeeker|14 years ago|reply
I'm not sure that removing anonymity from bidders is a good thing or not. I mean, if you know who the other bidders are, that would affect your strategy, removing some purity from the auction process, wouldn't it?
But, maybe you feel I'm sidestepping your real issue, so let me make another point: In any situation where companies might collude like this, they're effectively creating a cartel. Say, in the case of the employee salaries that you mention.
The problem with a cartel is that there is always an incentive for a member of the cartel to violate the agreement. For instance, if MSFT, Apple, Facebook and Google agreed to cap software developer salaries, then Google (or one of the others) has an incentive to secretly violate that agreement to get the best employees, right?
Pretty soon the cartel falls apart, or the agreement has no effect. The stronger the agreement, the more incentive there is to violate it.
Further, imagine if they were successful and kept salaries below a market rate-- this would give a huge boost to any of their competitors who were willing to pay market rates, right?
They'd only be shooting themselves in the foot by doing so, driving the best employees to other companies.
This is why cartels don't really work, or at least aren't sustainable for very long.
[+] [-] goatforce5|14 years ago|reply
I think that 'instead of' should be a 'As well as'.
[+] [-] iamelgringo|14 years ago|reply