https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-19/nokia-tells-reddit-it-infringes-some-patents-in-lead-up-to-ipo
Reddit Inc., the social media platform gearing up for an initial public offering this week, said Nokia Oyj has accused it of infringing some of their patents.
The phone itself is inert, just like a tungsten rod. But with enough velocity it could level a building.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment#Project_Thor
(And Project Thor is such a good name)
Stupid paywall, on a stupid article, about a stupid company, run by a stupid little piss boy. No thanks.
Lynn Doan Tue, March 19, 2024 at 11:14 AM GMT·1 min read
(Bloomberg) -- Reddit Inc., the social media platform gearing up for an initial public offering this week, said Nokia Oyj has accused it of infringing some of their patents.
Nokia Technologies, the company’s licensing business, sent Reddit a letter on Monday with the claims, and Reddit is evaluating them, according to a filing made Tuesday. “As we face increasing competition and become increasingly high profile, the possibility of receiving more intellectual property claims against us grows,” Reddit said in the filing. Nokia’s claims come as Reddit prepares for an initial public offering in an effort to raise hundreds of millions of dollars. The company has been working toward a listing for years, and its public market debut this week is set to become a high-profile addition to the year’s roster of newly and soon-to-be public companies.
Nokia is no stranger to patent fights. In February, the company reached a patent agreement with Chinese phone maker Vivo, ending a years-long dispute that dragged the two companies into court and forced Vivo to pull out of Germany. In 2021, Daimler and Nokia settled a dispute over the licensing of wireless technology patents in cars, ending a legal battle that had at one point threatened sales of the iconic Mercedes brand in its home country.
I tend to be principally against patents in general, as research suggests they actually stifle innovation rather than incentivize it. But in this case I’d say ‘let them fight, and may they both lose’.
It’s both. Patents are just a legal tool, and can be used and/or abused as the imperfect regulations allow.
It’s a legal tool that turns ideas into property. This allows capital to exercise power over it and profit through it, and on top of that inhibits innovation. So l’d say there is no use or abuse, it’s a bad legal framework that doesn’t achieve societal benefits.
So to be fair it's not like all patents are" I have an idea and I want to stop others from using it". Many are companies submitting technical documentation that the company spent millions of dollars to develop, they should get a head start on using it. After the patent expires everyone can use the tech that the original developer may have kept as trade secret instead. Of course they can be abused like most other things but there is definitely a use case for patents.
This allows capital to exercise power over it and profit through it
Of course it does… patent law as it stands goes hand-in-hand with capitalist economic systems. Patents are intended to incentivize investing in ideas. (That’s a lot of ‘i’s!)
On the other hand, people who come up with ideas are workers, too, and a system devoid of any means to discourage/prevent parasitic engagement—wherein others reap the rewards of these workers’ labor—doesn’t seem like the opposite of capitalism, either.
Edit: To be clear, I think current regulations need improvement, and am in no way defending patent trolls. If the intend goal of patent law does not align with its observed ramifications, the law should be changed.
It requires capital to obtain a patent and to defend a patent, workers are inherently excluded from this proces.
Again, you’ve identified a problem with the current implementation of patent law, not patents themselves.
I'm starting to get the feeling that we are both repeating ourselves, but this is not a just a side effect, it is systematic. Turning an idea into property means only capital can play the game. In effect patents do two things: Firstly they inhibits innovation, the exact opposite of what they are supposed to do, this should be ground enough to get rid of them. Second they entrench big players, big players have more money to play the patent game and so tend to win patent fights regardless of merit. So besides not achieving their so called stated goal they also have a huge negative externality. And all this before we even take patent trolls into account.
Nokia is no stranger to patent fights. In February, the company reached a patent agreement with Chinese phone maker Vivo, ending a years-long dispute that dragged the two companies into court and forced Vivo to pull out of Germany. In 2021, Daimler and Nokia settled a dispute over the licensing of wireless technology patents in cars, ending a legal battle that had at one point threatened sales of the iconic Mercedes brand in its home country.
Is Nokia becoming some sort of patent troll?
Nokia actually is a big player in 5G networks, which is what the Vivo one was about. I'm not sure you can call them a patent troll for defending patents that they're actually using
Right, but all those cases involved companies that were doing legit things with wireless. This is Reddit, though. Where do their businesses intercept?
The only thing I can think of is maybe they have some patent on actual trolls. They are from a Nordic country, after all.
There is a Nokia branch called Nokia Technologies. They invest money in R&D, they file for genuine patents involving new technology, for instance in audio and video compression. (They want to sue Netflix or already sued). Them defending themselves against patent abuse is how they earn money. And they go against other big corps. This is vastly different than your typical patent troll.
Is the only difference that they aren't actively buying up and hoarding other patents not filed in house? Because what you described is SOP for patent trolls.
It boils down to how broadly they interpret infringements. Not whether they did the R&D themselves (I.E. not buying companies for their patents)
Be careful not to assign a “patent troll” label to everyone defending their patent portfolio. Where do you mark the line?
I'm a software engineer. Most things should not be patentable.
Look and feel? No. Basic architecture? No. Given the same set of problems, engineers are very likely to come up with similar solutions.
I once designed an extremely complicated framework for TV apps. My boss at one point was impressed because he sat in on a "lecture" I was giving to a new teammate describing the architecture and why the complexity was needed. My boss got eager and asked if it was something we could patent. I said no.
About a year later, a coworker sent me an article from Netflix describing an extremely similar solution to what I had devised, from around the same time.
Same problem, pursued completely independently, with very similar solutions.
I believe that anti theft laws are sufficient for protecting proprietary algorithms/protocols, which does need to be protected. But ideas shouldn't be patentable.
I.E., gestures to navigate? No. Bezzles on smart screens? No. Backwards engineering your 5G protocol to be used with unapproved devices? Should be protected, but I don't think patents should be the vehicle. Backwards engineering your own 5G protocol that's very similar? Ehhhh debatable
Mechanical Engineer - hard disagree. Spending four years of iteration and design to make a final product with no protection would be ridiculous.
All someone has to do to copy a part is buy it and start making it. Which means all the money and time spent making the new widget is wasted.
Look and feel and basic architecture are respectively not eligible for utility patent or likely to be found obvious/directed to ineligible subject matter.
You must have forgotten about all those lawsuits around patent infringement on smart phone / tablet form factors. Things as trivial as black bezels around smart phone screens.
I specified utility patents. The smartphone wars covered a huge gamut of different types of IP, including both utility and design patents. If something is purely ornamental in nature (and new), it can get a design patent. There's quite a bit more nuance to it than that, tbf, but I'm on my mobile trying to gtfo bed in the morning so don't really want to dive into a doctrinal lesson on patents.
Large corporations devote significant resources to developing patentable technologies strictly for IP creation rather than productization. Part of this is for aggressive licensing purposes, part is for participation in patent licensing pools with other major companies, and part is for defensive purposes wrt blowback analysis (i.e., someone considers enforcing their own IP, but the target has so much other IP that could be turned against them, the blowback risk outweighs the possible gain in a successful enforcement).
This is pretty different than a troll, which typically does not develop technology but rather goes out and snaps up assets on firesale from companies having solvency issues or pruning their portfolios. Moreover, trolls are not entering pools or worrying about blowback.... they produce nothing so they cannot infringe a target's IP.
"You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain"
Nokia has chosen both ways at once.
It's like if Lemmy World was 1000x larger and defederated everyone else then was run for-profit so it became shittier over time.
It's this weird BSDM community where they all get fucked by their main dom, Spez. When someone is ready to get their crotch stepped on, you'll see them type "thanks, I just subbed."
Yay! Not that I care beyond seeing the old site have issues make life uncomfortable. Other than that, whatever. I'm good here.
Nokia is like a mosquito that uses patents to leech off of other companies. What a great business model. A real useful niche they're filling.
Nokia invents patented technology they use in their products (hint, not a cellphone)
Another company illegally uses this technology without a license
Nokia sues them for using their proprietary systems without permission
"Nokia is such a parasite"
Nokia Oyj is the part that Microsoft never bought. Their non-consumer-facing operations. Wireless tech and infrastructure, RnD, actual science.
And they were and still are huge in that sector, you just won't hear about them unless you work in internet infrastructure, because they no longer do consumer products like phones. (That's a completely different company, HMD Global, which acquired the rights to use the brand for phones)
Not a mosquito, more like IBM. Still around, still massive, but operating "behind the scenes" now.
“What a mosquito”, he says to the trampling mastodon that basically runs all of the B2B wireless tech in the majority of the world.
You realize they own Bell Labs, the organization that humanity owes the information age to, right?