Threat of lawsuits?
 

Hi guys, i was thinking about this the other day, has anyone noticed a lot of borrowed elements of MeeGo in Sailfish (ie. double tap to wake)? Since these were elements of a Nokia phone built by Nokia employees, does that intellectual property not belong to Nokia, and thus now Microsoft? Isn't the sailfish gang worried about it a bit?

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

Are they infringing any patents?

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

I don't know…it just seems too much "in the flavor of" MeeGo, thats all...

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

Couple of things.

I'm not sure if Jolla was officially part of Nokia's Bridge program, but people from Jolla have said many times that they have everything more than fine with Nokia. Nicely shown by Nokia and Jolla partnering with HERE maps.

Second, Microsoft bought half of Nokia, Nokia's device & services side. Nokia holds NSN, HERE and Advanced Technologies.
Advanced technologies is about Nokia Research and most of all it's the holder of Nokia patents. Microsoft bought the rights to use Nokia patents for 10 years for 1.65 billion. Nokia owns the patents and is the one getting the money stream out of them.

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

Considering that Microsoft never went after MeeGo, but have gone after Android, I wonder if they'll extend out to MeeGo now since it's a non-Nokia entity with an OS that might compete against them.

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

Just confirm myself, Jolla is indeed part of Nokia's Bridge program so they look to be safe from some weird situation where Nokia decides to sue them as far as OS goes.
http://www.zdnet.com/inside-nokia-br...ps-7000000863/

Somehow I doubt Nokia will use their patent portfolio against Jolla. Though you can expect Nokia to go full patent troll mode next year as it will end countless of cross licensing deals with manufacturers, Qualcomm and the likes and use its patent portfolio fully. Nokia did already gather 400 million euros just from patents yearly. It wont need to play nice anymore.

Certainly a possibility. Maybe Microsoft is too busy on with throwing all of that email, contacts and calendar synchronisation etc etc patent stuff against Android to care about the miniscule Jolla, for now at least.

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

There is always a risk of patent attack. Ranging from unknown patent trolls to big racketeers like MS and Apple. So, it's better to ask, did Jolla license any patents for Sailfish? Is this information public, or may be it's secret? Etc.

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

Double tap ain't patented imo, since htc(or lg?) can use it without getting sued. (Google knock knock features)

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

double tap? Tell me when I can't take a piss w/o infringing some patent.
A toilet system can be patented, Not the way you use it.
A touch screen can be patented. Not the way you use it.
How is that for a logic?

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

If said toilet had a double tap flush button to prevent you from accidentaly flushing your iPhone, that'd definitely be patentable. Sure, you don't patent user behaviour, but you can patent devices forcing a certain user behaviour.

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

Yes your are certainly right that all that is patentable.
My rant is addressed to the awakening pattent watch dogs that might be reading.

Software or specific usage patterns inherent to a certain technology..Good luck avoiding that overlap between "patentable" and what is supposed to be logic usage following a certain key technology.

And when something good gets going we have to fear the awakening patent watch dogs backed by their oiled law suite machine..

With the toilet example I'd point out that it shouldn't be patentable if a chimp given the device can figure it out (double tap or swipe).

Now I am off to check If I can secure my patent on all geometrical shapes to unlock, square, triple tap, swirl to unlock Morse code to send SMS and do simple things from lock screen w/o screen backlight on (army) and customizable app specific touch gestures on an overlay.

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

Even just the cost of defending spurious patent claims for a small company could be huge. A lot of patent trolls rely on the fact it's often cheaper to pay for a licence than defend the claim.

I wonder how much this has affected the design, features and global roll out of their first device?

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

lol
good luck (if it's already available as a product or the solution to the problem to be solved has been published, it can no longer be patented)
deep pockets (to file the patents, to defend them, to enforce them)

some things can't be patented, some things were patented a long time ago and the protection has run out, some things are on a product before any patent application was filed, and some things even get not patented to protect the knowledge on how they are working or are produced.
the patent watch dogs are trolls making their lives easy by assuming each technology on a product is actually patented. unless someone actually posts a link to a patent (all of them are available publicly, including applications pending) I won't worry.
(Source: I have a patent pending and spent weeks with a lawyer, researching if my invention was published, patented or sold before)

and I see you have understood how patents nowadays work (worst are uboat patents imnsho btw)

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

It's nothing to do with logic (there is not one "logic" by the way).
It's all about (patent) law.

Where law and (some system of) logic overlap, consider yourself lucky.

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

And don't forget that US patents and EU patents differ. Most of the US trash patents in electronics can't be patented in the EU, as the patent law is not as permissible. Even the US is coming to terms with this (i.e. the summer rejection of Apples pinch-to-zoom patent in the US).

Since Jolla is not selling directly in the US, I assume patents can't be infringed on in that market anyway.

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

In other news, the EU has warned Nokia not to go down the road of a patent troll.
They're keeping a close eye on Nokia now. Google and Microsoft already had to learn what that means. ;)

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

pycage: Do you have a link? What does it mean for Nokia's patent attack on VPx codecs?

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

Yes, I have a link. It was on engadget today.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/09/e...-patent-troll/

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

I didn't really understand the point of that warning. Nokia already became a troll (which even indirectly affected Sailfish with lack of VPx). Instead of warning, EU could take action to prevent any patent abuse.

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

I think that the warning is regarding patents that are essential for standards, and VPx sholuldn't fall into that category, nor rounded corners, if ever that were patentable in the EU.

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

I see, then this warning isn't really useful since a lot of trolling and patent racket happens outside of standards. Inside standards it's actually much harder to do anything, like Google already learned with Motorola.

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

Www.goophone.cc survive? Noone going to sueeee?

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

There is always the defence of prior art if previous use or open knowledge can be demonstrated.

Richard

Re: Threat of lawsuits?
 

Prior art is a really hard defense to pull as far as I understand, however so far software patents in Europe are still pretty limited, I always understood one of the reasons Jolla is/was not going to the US was patents...