Things seem to be going from bad to worse for Microsoft. At the start of the month the Xbox 360 was handed a distribution ban in Germany. That saw an appeal and is still tangled up in legal hearings. Now, a judge from the International Trade Commission has recommended an import ban on the machine entering the United States and a block on all sales of existing stock.
Microsoft’s argument against the ban – which is recommended due to a copyright infringement claim by Motorola – is that it would leave consumers with limited options. Judge David Shaw counters that argument with unintentional hilarity by saying that Sony and Nintendo can probably deal with any extra demand.
It’s a little bit strange that Microsoft would insist that a potential copyright infringement would be okay, as long as it offers more consumer choice but it seems equally odd that access to other games consoles be used to defend the recommendation. Surely they either broke Motorola’s copyright or they didn’t?
Previous blocks on import and distribution of games consoles in the US and Europe have always been challenged, leading some to claim that bans were never in place. These legal challenges are very real though, and even if they rarely stop the sale of goods, they offer up significant hurdles for manufacturers to overcome. These patent wars only seem to be getting worse.
Judge Shaw’s recommendation will now be discussed by the commissioners on the ITC and if they agree it will be passed on to the president’s advisors for a final decision.
Source: MCV
bigbaldwolf
These legal battles are getting out of hand. They are going on with all kinds of phones, computers, gadgets etc. There’s only so many things that can be designed in the world so sooner or later people are going to be using the same stuff. The world needs to wake up and move on
ron_mcphatty
Indeed! Or, maybe the courts should be deciding whether it was or wasn’t a copyright infringement so that Microsoft can either settle or Motorola can go home. Whats the business benefit for Motorola if they block Microsofts consoles sales? I doubt it would hurt their Microsofts mobile revenue.
KeRaSh
It’s not about wether some of their products directly compete with them. They use their tech and Motorola wants money for it. If I remember correctly MS even admitted that it uses the patents in question but they refuse to pay the price Motorola is asking for it.
ron_mcphatty
Huh, no way, well then let them fight it out in court. They can help generate some money for the US legal system.
teflon
Yup, it’s down to a legitimate patent infringement, but the problem here is that Motorola’s patents are crucial to the H.264 video encoding and decoding standard. They had previously committed to licensing these under Fair, Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory terms (FRAND), but are not doing so.
I believe that they are throwing their weight around with their standard vital patents against many parties, be it Apple or Microsoft, and asking for 3-5% of the final product’s retail price. Obviously, this is completely unreasonable, since if every licensor did this, there wouldn’t just be no profit margin for the manufacturer, but over 100% of the product’s price to consumers would be promised away.
Instead, it should be that it’s a percentage of the cost of the H.264 decoding chipset, or something similar. We’d be talking fractions of a percent of the overall cost, rather than what they currently demand.
So yes, Microsoft broke the patents, but they’ve done so without any other way of offering an industry standard under a fair deal. They have already brought Motorola’s anti-competitive attitude to the attention of the courts, but that’s a separate legal proceeding where they’d have to appeal in order to get this particular ban lifted.
hazelam
ms falling foul of some other company’s anti-competitive behavior?
karma’s a bitch aint it? ^_^
edjpm
Whilst I agree that this kind of tit-for-tat battles are getting out of hand is it still not reasonable to assume that someone who designs something should get some kind of payment or compensation for it’s use?
there is more than one way to skin a cat and as far as I know patents cannot be too general. For instance it shouldnt be allowed to patent the concept of a window in a building. But should be allowed to patent a particular type of glazing that achieves the aim of a more efficient window.
If microsoft will not pay to use Motorola’s video codecs, they should have to figure out their own way of doing it.
Having said that, my knowledge of patents and video codecs isnt great so maybe I’m talking nonsense.
edjpm
Just read Teflon’s comment, which would appear to be more informed than my own. Like I said, my knowledge of such matters is limited.
rht992
Even if they have broken some copyright I really hope Xbox isn’t banned in the U.S. If any games console was banned it would surely destroy the company who made it, drastically change the industry and mean that thousands of games developers would loose their jobs.
Jakster123x
Wow, now that is interesting.
Deathbrin
How so?
Jakster123x
A ban in Germany is one thing, but a possible ban in the US – the biggest market for MS – is another, much bigger issue.
Kennykazey
By the looks of things, Microsoft probably broke the copyright. If they haven’t then they would just say so and be able to prove it, something they would (or at least should) have done already.
But the console won’t be banned, at least not for long, as this is a software/firmware patent (isn’t it?) and MS can just release an update for it.
amiga_dude
It not a Copyright issue! It a patent issue. Copyrights and Patents are to different things both of which are called Intellectual Property(IP).
Put it this way I come up with concept of a blog. The idea of a blog could be covered by patent. But the articles on that blog would be covered by a copyright.
So change some source code will not do anything if still doing what is being describe in patent. But that’s not saying if do same thing in different way you would not be able to side step the patent in question.
gaffers101
You can see now why Google bought Motorola. Motorola own a lot of copyrights, and with the might of Google, these sort of disputes could become much more common.
amiga_dude
Bang on the Money there. Microsoft is demanding a licence deals from every Android phone. So this is just another reason for buy up of Motorola now Google can now start put screws to Microsoft and demand that the licence charges that Microsoft are demanding for Android are at least reduced or even dropped.
TSBonyman
From elsewhere….”While Microsoft obviously protested, believing the suspension of Xbox 360 sales would hurt competition in the marketplace, Shaw says “enforcing intellectual property rights outweighs any potential economic impact on video game consol buyers.”
The dispute dates back a few years, and centres around allegations that Microsoft’s Xbox 360 infringes upon five patents held by Motorola, mostly related to video codecs.
If the ITC’s commissioners agree with Shaw, their recommendation will end up on President Obama’s desk, where he and his advisors will have 60 days to review it.”
Personally i would expect them to settle – like Sony and LG did recently- but it must be quite serious if it’s going straight to the presidents office!
Forrest_01
So where are Xbox 360’s made then? Not America one would presume!
colossalblue
I think they’re made in the same Foxconn factories, famous for poor working conditions, that people think only Apple uses. Foxconn makes stuff for Sony, Nintendo, Samsung, Toshiba, Dell and loads of others. Motorola too, ironically.
Forrest_01
Well, that would explain the ‘importing’ part i guess!
Also might go some way to explaining how this copyright infringement came about in the first place;
Underpaid worker 1 – Bob, you got those Motorola components?
Underpaid worker 2 – Motorola? You mean these bits ive just fitted to this Xbox?
Underpaid worker 1 – Shhh, if you keep quiet about, it no-one will notice!
Underpaid worker 2 – So just keep installing Motorola components into Xboxes from now on?
Underpaid worker 1 – You got it. Who’s gonnna know? Who’s gonna care?
Underpaid worker 2 – Motorola might.
Underpaid worker 1 – Nah. They’re cool.
hol
Poor Microsoft, not having a good time of it recently? Still, it’s karma for the way they steamrollered over rivals in the past.
skibadee
MS do this to Android & many other have a taste of your own medicine.
teflon
MS license a broad spectrum of patents to Android manufacturers. If they were doing so in an anti-competitive fashion, or these related to industry standard essential technologies, then the terms would be reasonable, lest they be faced with an anti-competitive lawsuit.
What Motorola are doing is trying to get a large percentage of the final product sale price for a comparatively microscopic range of standards essential patents that they had previously committed to licensing in a fair and even handed manner.
I’m not saying that MS is holier than thou, but in this case it’s Moto being all sorts of scummy, and it’s a tactic that they’re going to be called out on in the coming months.
cc_star
Given that Xbox’s primary use is media not gaming, the case does have legs.
Motorola need to be chasing the same terms with other manufacturers too though, else they’ll be wielding their patents with discrimination which goes against their (probable) FRAND basis.
OneShotWook
Cc that is another can of worms,i don’t think i’ve ever watched a movie on my xbox,just trying to copy a music file onto it needs extreme patience.
Ed the Penguin
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
edjpm
I doubt this will go as far as getting the ban imposed, probably a settlement out of court or a software update to resolve.
If it did get banned, or it is unresolvable through software updating, is it possible that Microsoft would bring forward their jump into the next gen?