FTC May Recommend Antitrust Suit Against Google

[f-14]

[citation][nom]abbadon_34[/nom]you know Al Gore is on the Board of Director's of Apple...political coincidence?[/citation]
NAFTA and PNTR with china that walmart heavily lobbied for during the clinton administration, hillary clinton , a wal mart board of director.

soylndra and obama, obama and rezcorp.
there are no coincidences, just good old fashioned out right bribery, just like president taft and president harding administrations

 

[olaf]

it funny that apple is doing exactly the same thing

 

[ericburnby]

[citation][nom]Solandri[/nom]Agreed. Except in Google/Motorola's case, Apple has refused to license the patents. They've just been selling their products without licensing. Their latest "offer" was $1 per device (a ridiculously low 0.2%) with no penalty for hundreds of millions of past devices for which they've illegally never paid a dime. What else is a patent-holder supposed to do when the other party won't play ball like this except seek a ban?Yes some other companies are licensing for probably around $1 per device. But that's in exchange for cross-licensing other patents. Apple refuses to cross-license.[/citation]

Cut the BS.

Apple cross licenses with Nokia and MS, for example. Before the Samsung lawsuit Apple offered a license to them as we'll.

And Apple has admitted they have to pay Motorola for licensing. They are refusing Motorola's obviously inflated and discriminatory demands.

 

[Pinhedd]

[citation][nom]Solandri[/nom]Agreed. Except in Google/Motorola's case, Apple has refused to license the patents. They've just been selling their products without licensing. Their latest "offer" was $1 per device (a ridiculously low 0.2%) with no penalty for hundreds of millions of past devices for which they've illegally never paid a dime. What else is a patent-holder supposed to do when the other party won't play ball like this except seek a ban?Yes some other companies are licensing for probably around $1 per device. But that's in exchange for cross-licensing other patents. Apple refuses to cross-license.[/citation]

Apple's argument is that they don't have to licence the patents because they're not incorporated into Apple's designs. Apple buys chips from Broadcom and Broadcom licenses the patents from Samsung/Motorola. Under the patent exhaustion doctrine, Samsung doesn't control the IP once an unrestricted sale has occurred. Thus, while Samsung has the right to prevent other parties from incorporating patents that Samsung owns into products that Samsung doesn't want their patents used in, Samsung does not have the right to prevent other parties from buying and arbitrarily using products that Samsung has authorized their patents to be used in. Samsung's argument that Broadcom's patent licenses apply to all of Broadcom's customers except Apple is not only discriminatory (and thus possibly a violation of their FRAND/RAND obligations) but it's a poorly thought out and poorly planned reactionary maneuver.

I'm no fan of Apple and I'd love to see them get smacked around a bit by the legal system but I think that the law is on their side here.

 

[Guest]

The most interesting thing is that the patents are not related to Android but to mobile hardware.
Google with it's nexus devices and Motorola is not a monopoly in this sense.

Android is becoming a monopoly but it is opens source and OEMs can change it anyway they want. I don't see a case here.

 

[everygamer]

Ok, so Apple basically has set the standard in the last 2 years for doing exactly what the FTC is going after Google for .... ???

I think someone needs to research the 5 guys on the board that determines this and see if they or anyone in their family has investments in Apple. Seems to me that this is pretty blatant. Also, if Google has the patents why can't they defend their platform? They can't say its because Google has an advantage over Apple since Apple is the most valuable company in US history. I sense motive.

 

[everygamer]

[citation][nom]HelenBrisk[/nom]The most interesting thing is that the patents are not related to Android but to mobile hardware.Google with it's nexus devices and Motorola is not a monopoly in this sense. Android is becoming a monopoly but it is opens source and OEMs can change it anyway they want. I don't see a case here.[/citation]

A true Monopoly doesn't exist in this case, Apple still represents 25% of the market share of mobile phones. This is not like the old days back when Microsoft had 95% of PC's and Mac less than 2% (the rest was other stuff like Linux). Especially when that 25% represents huge profits and shows no harm to the company that largely sells their new products to existing customers (70%).

Also, where was the FTC when Apple was the big guy with 70% of the smartphone market and Google was the struggling little guy (this was like 2 years ago). Unfortunately this is called competition, companies do it all the time. Let the market alone and let it adjust for itself. Apple has already showed that they are not dependent on Google when they dropped Google Maps and iTunes (event though there was a clear customer choice in those products).

I think Apple is making people a lot of money, and those people are worried about their investments and are pushing people in legal power to protect their interests.

 

[everygamer]

[citation][nom]dark_knight33[/nom]Fixed.[/citation]

No I think its more the Android fans calling foul .... it's like ref's calling off-sides only on one team after they have been ignoring the other team for the last 4 quarters. At that point the fans get pissed. I have no problem with the FTC going after Google for this, so long as they drop the same complaint on Apple and the rest of the industry at the same time.

 

[everygamer]

Sorry, my last post was in response to this quote ..

"So when Apple does it it's the evil empire but when Google does it it's ok ...lmao Love the Android fanboys."

 

[eijiyuki]

Google is putting itself in position while Apple has been out right doing it left and right and yet nothing happens to Apple... US was the only place Apple won its case against Samsung while every country in the world ruled in favor of Samsung so far.

 

[eijiyuki]

[citation][nom]everygamer[/nom]A true Monopoly doesn't exist in this case, Apple still represents 25% of the market share of mobile phones. This is not like the old days back when Microsoft had 95% of PC's and Mac less than 2% (the rest was other stuff like Linux). Especially when that 25% represents huge profits and shows no harm to the company that largely sells their new products to existing customers (70%).Also, where was the FTC when Apple was the big guy with 70% of the smartphone market and Google was the struggling little guy (this was like 2 years ago). Unfortunately this is called competition, companies do it all the time. Let the market alone and let it adjust for itself. Apple has already showed that they are not dependent on Google when they dropped Google Maps and iTunes (event though there was a clear customer choice in those products).I think Apple is making people a lot of money, and those people are worried about their investments and are pushing people in legal power to protect their interests.[/citation]

Apple set the standard for what the FTC wants to go after Google for thinking about doing.

 

[beayn]

[citation][nom]Camikazi[/nom]Wait hasn't Apple been trying to ban Samsung and HTC products pretty much world-wide with lawsuits already? Why check on Google when Apple was doing it first?[/citation]Maybe Apple has the patent on that...