By Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. No? OK, Google’s being sued. Shocker, right? This time, a technology firm by the name of Gemalto is filing a lawsuit for patent infringements against Google, HTC, Motorola, Samsung for the use of innovations in Android and Dalvik. This all sounds too familiar. Here are the quotes direct from Gemalto:
“Gemalto’s patented technologies are fundamental to running software, developed in a high level programming language such as Java, on a resource constrained device,” said a Gemalto spokesperson. “Gemalto is recognized as a pioneer and ground-breaking contributor to the JavaCard – one of the devices for which the patented technologies were conceived.”
“This lawsuit is necessary to protect our investment in innovation,” he added. “The technologies we develop and associated intellectual property rights are essential to Gemalto’s future. It is our commitment to our employees, customers, partners, and shareholders to protect those innovations from companies who ignore Gemalto’s intellectual property rights.”
That’s about all there is to take out of the issue, at this point, as Google has yet to respond. (But you should be happy to know we’re trying to reach out for comment, of course.) Why don’t we just create a Google Android lawsuit generator? Fill in the blanks!
“________ has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google, [hardware partners], for innovations in the Android operating system and the Dalvik Virtual machine. We at ________ have an obligation to protect our assets and intellectual property.”
And the accompanying translation…
“We want monies. You have monies. Give us monies.”
[via Cellular News]
*points a finger at US patent system and laughs*
This is dumb. you could go as far to say a PC is a “resource constrained device”. I hope this gets thrown out.
We need a rather large software patent reform, or to get rid of software patents altogether(which is my favorite option). All it does is hinder innovation.
i want monies too :(
Why can’t anyone just let Google be….jesus!
oh yea, first. He shoots he scores!!!
he misses…
I see correlation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemalto#Microsoft_Partnership
there just upset that they didnt invent the best search engine and the best mobile os
Wait what are the patents in question? That has to be the most fluff press release I’ve seen in awhile in regards to patent infringement in a compiler.
Yep, we need some serious patent reform. I think it would be beneficial to still have some software patents, but no software patents would be better than our current system.
LOL at the 2nd half of the article.
Gemalto makes sim cards and is a digital security company from the Netherlands.
I’m always interested to see how much “infringement” is actually occuring.
Just remember, we cheer when this happens to Apple and MS. Large companies will generally find themselves on the other end of a lawsuit, sometimes because people are money hungry, other times because they have screwed up.
New Zealand’s parliament is preparing to vote on a major patent reform bill that will tighten the country’s standards of patentability. One of the most significant changes in the proposed bill is a specific patentability exclusion for software. If the bill receives parliamentary approval in its current form, it will broadly eliminate conventional software patents in New Zealand.
The bill was drafted by the Select Commerce Committee, which decided to include the exclusion after reviewing feedback from the software industry. The bill’s official summary acknowledges that software patents are detrimental to the open source software development model and have the potential to seriously stifle innovation.
“Protecting software by patenting is inconsistent with the open source model, and its proponents oppose it. A number of submitters argued that there is no ‘inventive step’ in software development, as ‘new’ software invariably builds on existing software,” the bill summary says. “They felt that computer software should be excluded from patent protection as software patents can stifle innovation and competition, and can be granted for trivial or existing techniques. In general we accept this position.”
The Commerce Committee says that the ban on software patents will not block companies from patenting hardware inventions that encompass embedded software. It will be up to the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand to craft the specific rules for determining what kind of embedded software is patentable.
I don’t cheer when this happens to Apple and Microsoft… these vague patents where nothing is specifically described are brutal and slow everything else down. It’s like, I could patent the flying car by saying “Car that flies” in my patent language, and if someone makes a personal vehicle that does such, I could sue them. Sheer insanity in the IP world…
like this will really stop google from doing anything with android now. seriously i dont know why people try and take on google anymore.
@Colby – Agreed, given Google’s current position as a super powerhouse there isnt alot anyone can do to stop them. But…there are still ways to get a piece of the pie. (even if it is in court)
Translation = “We want monies. You have monies. Give us monies.” LOOOOOOOL
software patents are evil. stop this madness already!
Hey, wait a minute. I thought of an open mobile operating system first…”sending lawsuit now…”
same ol’ same ol’
+1 on monies. HAH!
So this one time, 2 years before the iPhone was created, I told my friend’s sister, “You know what would be awesome, if Apple could make this (my palm pilot) and this (my cell phone) one device and have it all work with my Mac. Now, the iPhone is popular. Does that mean I can sue Apple? That is exactly what it sounds like developers all around the world are doing with Android. Profiteers… sigh.
Man this one seems to be the weakest of all….almost like they just tossed it out there. I just read a comment on a blog a few days ago about how no one uses Java Card. And its not a part of Java from looking at the Wikipedia article on it. In fact if this were to hold up it would mean that Java infringes on the patent and even if Oracle is paying for a license that the OpenJDK is not free or open. Its looking worse and worse by the day to build on Java as an independent dev or start up. I hate Python syntax but I may end up learning it.
Gemal….who?
Planet earth is a resource constrained device.
I can haz Googlez moniez…
@Col.O’Neill, I had one of those Palm Pilot/phone things. It was called a Handspring Visor with VisorPhone Springboard. And it synced with my computer, too. What a magical, revolutionary concept. Used it for 9 years…
Hmmm… I have a patent for a software application in which 8-bit monkeys are crammed into crates…. it’s called monkey crate… I’m working on suing google for copywrite infringment as well… after all they went and stole my concepts and applied it to java code (my monkeys) and this dalvik machine (crate anyone)… i’ve got to protect my intellectual property just the same you know… monkey crates don’t just grow on trees google… neither do java virtual machines! Thieves …
HAHAHA
LMAO!
the second half of the atricle made me laugh for a good 5-10 minutes.
“we want monies, you have monies, give us monies”
CLASSIC hhahaha
lol! When I seen this I thought it was ground hogs day for the 15th time. hahahaha.