Deposition of complaints against Android for patent violations have become more than common. If the clash between Apple and Samsung takes the majority of media coverage, Google had also accused Microsoft and Oracle gang with Cupertino to poison the life of its operating system. And while trials spring up everywhere, British Telecom filed complaint in turn.
The English telephone operator considers him also that Android and services such as Google Music violate patents belonging to him. The case is noted by Florian Mueller who explains his Foss Patents blog the ins and outs. Six patents are relevant for various capabilities of network communications and British Telecom account on them for its share of the booty...
Google Maps, one of the offending services
The complaint has been made to the United States, in a district court of Delaware. British Telecom is looking above all for the damages. Mueller supports on a particular point: paid should be tripled because Google would "voluntarily and deliberately" violated the patent of British Telecom. Moreover, the payment of such a sum would not prevent Google to pay any royalties to BT so long as the offending patents continue to be used.
Florian Mueller noted that the complaint of BT comes in full completion of the acquisition of the mobile division of Motorola (MMI) by Google. That it means two possibilities: either Motorola has no patent allowing Google to defend or counterattack, or BT and MMI have a cross licensing agreement. But in either case, the operator wants to assert his rights.
Here are the six patents in question: 6 151 309: filed in April 1994, granted in November 2000, he described in very general terms as a service management system can provide information to a user despite the presence of several networks different (heterogeneous infrastructure). Android and Google Music are concerned. 6 169 515: filed in September 1994, granted in January 2001, he describes how a navigation system uses a fixed base equipped with a GPS chip to then transmit information to a mobile unit. Here of course, is Google Maps that is referred. 6 650 284: filed in September 1994, granted in 2003, it extends the previous patent by adapting the information to the vehicle used by the user. Google Maps is still covered, service changing its results according to the mode of travel selected (pedestrian or car).6 397 040: filed in April 1997, in May 2002, this patent is particularly broad since it covers the creation and dissemination of short lists of dependent information of the location of the user. Almost all Google services are concerned. 6 578 079: filed in October 1997, granted in June 2003, this patent brings the identification of the user with lists of rights and the ability to access or name to items, which is the description of the DRM. The Android Market is particularly affected since it is the identity of the user which provides access to content purchased. 6 826 598: filed in May 1998, granted in November 2004, this patent is one of the broadest. It covers the registration of information and their recovery from a network distributed storage units. Here, these are Maps and Maps Navigation services concerned.Patents are therefore mostly in the British Telecom anyway for a long time and which are sufficiently vague to cover many recent services.
The question of the usefulness of these complaints against Android had already been addressed in our columns. We had then raised the possibility that Microsoft, Apple, Oracle or even eBay sought either to use a part of this appetizing cake (500 000 activations of Android devices a day), that manages to Microsoft including, either to give a true Android price, or both.
However, Florian Mueller expressed precisely this fear: "with such a number of major patent holders claiming their rights, the obligation to pay royalties may force Google to change its license of Android model and pass the cost of royalties to equipment manufacturers. Clear: Android for the first real tariff including the manufacturers of smartphones and tablets should fulfil.
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