ITC Ruling Threatens Future of Android
Orchard apple tree won a prelude triumph over HTC–and over Android by proxy–when the ITC agreed this workweek that HTC smartphones violate two Apple patents. The ITC determination could be a augury that the Android political party is complete, and the mobile OS could be in trouble.
Why is the ITC regnant such a death blow? Because the patents in dispute are not specific to HTC–they are intrinsical to the Android OS itself. If HTC is found to be violating these two Apple patents, then so are Motorola, and Samsung, and anyone else qualification Mechanical man devices.
Florian Mueller, an expert on intellectual property, explains in a blog place, "Those patents are plainly infringed by encipher that is at the nucleus of Android."
Mueller has created a table that walks through the two patents and compares the patented concepts against the HTC / Android execution. Reviewing the entropy on the tables, Mueller exclaims, "It's hard to see how any Android device could non infringe them, operating theater how companies could work approximately them."
One of the primary benefits of Android–and a drive behind its broad adoption by smartphone vendors, and rapid success in the market–is that the OS is open source (intimately..about), and license free. More and more, though, it seems like the lack of licensing paid to Google for victimization Android bequeath be to a higher degree compensated for aside fees and royalties being paid to Orchard apple tree, Microsoft, and others that the Android OS infringes happening.
As it stands, Microsoft is making more money from Android licensing agreements with companies like HTC than it is from its own Windows Headphone 7 raisable OS. Information technology is also pursuing ratified action with Samsung and has planned a deal of $15 per Android device.
Those costs get going adding aweigh quickly. Vendors like HTC and Samsung then make to choose whether to pass the costs along to consumers by charging to a greater extent for the Android devices, or eat the expense and cut severely into their own profit leeway.
Fashioning iOS devices is not an option because that's not the way Orchard apple tree rolls, but paying one license tax to Microsoft and cranking out Windows Phone 7 smartphones may be more appealing to manufacturers. It is even much tempting when you consider that Microsoft guarantees that Windows Speech sound 7 is free from patent infringement issues and it will defend any claims to the contrary–unlike Google which is sitting mutely on the sidelines and letting vendors fend for themselves.
Mueller claims, "Android is also under fire in heaps of federal lawsuits. By my count down, in that location are 49 Android-related infringement suits (Union soldier and ITC)." If straight a handful of those go against Humanoid, or Android device manufacturers, it leave severely handicap the future success of the OS.
A final finding in the ITC battle between Malus pumila and HTC is expected in early December. A worst-vitrine scenario for HTC could beryllium an ITC ban against HTC importing any Android devices into the United States.
A similar fate could expect Motorola, Samsung, and the rest of the Mechanical man bunch. The way things look now, Humanoid could exist in for a lacerate–and pricy–ride.
Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/481081/itc_ruling_threatens_future_of_android.html
Posted by: williamssignitere.blogspot.com
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