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Forums - Sony - LG gets injunction against PS3 sales in Europe!?

dsister on 02 March 2011
drkohler said:

The problem is not that easy. The patents essentially apply to _ANY_ Blu-ray drive. LG singled out the PS3, because it is somewhat "the device" and they solely want to piss off Sony for the cell-phone lawsuit. Why doesn't go LG after all the other 211252524 makers of Blu-ray devices who very likely also infringe on (some of) the specific copyrights? What happens if LG "wins" (there is no winning in such lawsuits) to the other 211252524 makers? Will LG lose by default because they singled out one specific device of a competitor? Only the courts will tell, and as usual with the court system, the results will be unpredictable.


Who's to say those other 211252524 companies didn't license it?



Sig thanks to Saber! :D 

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drkohler on 02 March 2011
dsister said:
drkohler said:

The problem is not that easy. The patents essentially apply to _ANY_ Blu-ray drive. LG singled out the PS3, because it is somewhat "the device" and they solely want to piss of


Who's to say those other 211252524 companies didn't license it?

Probability (or certainty with chinese manufacturers...). Like I mentioned before, with any modern device there are hundreds, sometimes thousands of patents in play. Which ones are enforcable (= we must pay royalties), which ones are weak (= we likely get away with not paying), which ones won't stand (= we certainly won't pay), which ones we didn't even know about when we designed our stuff?  It is a mine field, and if you go the safe route by completely considering and finding all patents for your device and get licences, you spend ages and millions for lawyers and your device will not be marketable anymore due to the high prices involved and being too late in the market. I did read the (identical?) LG lawsuit against Sony in th US and for the non-lawer I am, it reads like "please please do us a favour and let us win" (every second paragraph says "we have many Americans working for us", "we have a new factory built in America", "we spend a lot of $$ in America"), and at least one of the four patents reads like "water can be used for drinking". In the end, lawers will cash in and both LG and Sony will have spent tons of money when whatever settlement is agrred upon.



Kasz216 on 02 March 2011
Alby_da_Wolf said:
Kasz216 said:
Booh! said:
Kasz216 said:
Booh! said:
 

No, you cannot.

You're mixing copyright infringement (NES cartridges, PS3 games), with patent infringment. The licence for PS3 or NES games is not a technological licence, it's a copyright licence.

Show me where your forced to liscense pantents.

Everything i've read on patent law says otherwise.  Note that Drugs are patented... and those rights are not liscensed.

The patent monopoly can be used to exclude others from producing your product, or you can make money by licensing your monopoly rights to others.

http://www.tannedfeet.com/patent_law.htm

 

"Patents protect specific design innovation or way of doing things (That summary may be lacking). They are stronger than copyright, in that independent development is not an excuse. The patent holder is also allowed to refuse licensing the patent (even if they don't use it themselves). The term for patents are also shorter: less than 20 years; whereas copyright lasts for at least 50 years after the death of the author (by berne convention). Patents are also supposed to be granted only for novel ideas not obvious to somebody skilled in the art."

http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=41550&start=40

 

Companys are free to withold liscensing to whoever they wish.  If you've got proof to the contrary, feel free to bring it up.


http://www.iprstrust.org/page/basics-faq

Essential patent and essential facility, if you cannot build Bluray player without the LG patents, than those patents are essential. You cited US law, European law is quite more liberal. The difference is that Europe enforces anti-monopoly law, while US never did lately.

Prove it's essential?  Also, that Blu-ray is essential.  Afterall, they don't force liscensing of drugs do they?  That seems... more essential.

As far as I know, for it to be an "Essential Patent" it needs to be for the Industry standard.

Which Blu-ray is not.  DVD still is.  Even if it is considered and Industry Standard you'd have to prove those patents are essential and can't be worked around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_Association

LG is founding member and member of the board of directors of the Blu-Ray Disc Association. This makes things different, as if those patents were essential for the standard, LG would have committed a "patent ambush". But as it filed a lawsuit, most probably this is not the case, so those patents must be used only in Sony's implementations. But in this case the infringing parts can be replaced, although it would take some time and a lot of money (not only for design and implementation, but also because damages already suffered by LG shold be compensated) to Sony to get out of troubles this way, so an agreement is the most probable outcome.


Most probable, though not definite.  Which is my point.  I expect a settlement will be the obvious way out.  However.  What you should keep in mind is.

They aren't targeting Sony Blu-ray Players. 

They are targeting PS3's and Bravaria TVS. 

So, patent ambushing shouldn't apply, since it's not about the players... but about HD Tvs and videogame systems.

Also a Patent Ambush only applies when information is withheld about patents.  Sony could of full well known of the patents and just infrined on them.



Tony_Stark on 02 March 2011
kowenicki said:
Tony_Stark said:
Xen said:
Tony_Stark said:
Xen said:
Tony_Stark said:
Xen said:
radiantshadow92 said:

sucks for anyone that is looking to buy a ps3 (if this goes on past 3 weeks)

It's only for 10 days ATM.

Still, it's no good. Especially given that LG's products are vastly inferior to Sony's.


Lol, yeah. Sony's TV's DROOL in comparison to LG's, both in terms of picture quality and design.

Back on topic, that's seriously messed up, but I'm sure Sony will settle if they feel they can't win...I thought they paid royalties to all the contributers of Bluray anyway.

There, I fixed it for ya. You can thank me tomorrow.

Now I fixed it...and no, I will not thank you for trying to say something that is completely untrue.

Your stubborness does not reflect well on Iron Man my friend.

Also, yours is untrue :P


Lol, no.

 

BTW, my opinion is hereby reguarded, without question, as fact!

http://www.stuff.tv/top-10s/tvs


Wait...how did ANY Phillips TV make it on that list? I had one...for a total of 3 hours, I brought it back because thier firmware really screws with the picture if you are not using their HD appliances...which I do not.



"with great power, comes great responsibility."

Alby_da_Wolf on 03 March 2011
Kasz216 said:
Alby_da_Wolf said:
Kasz216 said:

Booh! said:

[...]
http://www.iprstrust.org/page/basics-faq

Essential patent and essential facility, if you cannot build Bluray player without the LG patents, than those patents are essential. You cited US law, European law is quite more liberal. The difference is that Europe enforces anti-monopoly law, while US never did lately.

Prove it's essential?  Also, that Blu-ray is essential.  Afterall, they don't force liscensing of drugs do they?  That seems... more essential.

As far as I know, for it to be an "Essential Patent" it needs to be for the Industry standard.

Which Blu-ray is not.  DVD still is.  Even if it is considered and Industry Standard you'd have to prove those patents are essential and can't be worked around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_Association

LG is founding member and member of the board of directors of the Blu-Ray Disc Association. This makes things different, as if those patents were essential for the standard, LG would have committed a "patent ambush". But as it filed a lawsuit, most probably this is not the case, so those patents must be used only in Sony's implementations. But in this case the infringing parts can be replaced, although it would take some time and a lot of money (not only for design and implementation, but also because damages already suffered by LG shold be compensated) to Sony to get out of troubles this way, so an agreement is the most probable outcome.


Most probable, though not definite.  Which is my point.  I expect a settlement will be the obvious way out.  However.  What you should keep in mind is.

They aren't targeting Sony Blu-ray Players. 

They are targeting PS3's and Bravaria TVS. 

So, patent ambushing shouldn't apply, since it's not about the players... but about HD Tvs and videogame systems.

Also a Patent Ambush only applies when information is withheld about patents.  Sony could of full well known of the patents and just infrined on them.

Yes, in fact in this case the patent ambush would apply only if LG deceived the BD Association, of which it is a member, but it looks like these patents don't regard BD. So much the better for us users, we just don't needed this shit furtherly expanding. Curiously, besides Sony haters, you can find in the threads about this news some BD haters that hope Blu-Ray be d0med for what happened and grasp at straws to keep their hope alive.   

And just to stay in the realm of hope and dreams, the best outcome for us users would be that Sony win about PS3 and TVs and LG win about cellphones, but this would establish a high-profile precedent against patent bullying, trolling and retaliation, so, alas, both big companies and patent specialized lawyers will (not explicitly) push against it and more towards an agreement that would keep their power intact.



Stwike him, Centuwion. Stwike him vewy wuffly! (Pontius Pilate, "Life of Brian")
A fart without stink is like a sky without stars.
TGS, Third Grade Shooter: brand new genre invented by Kevin Butler exclusively for Natal WiiToo Kinect. PEW! PEW-PEW-PEW!   


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Homeroids on 03 March 2011

Maybe already mentioned:

 

LG managed to secure an import ban against Sony on Monday which would last for just ten daysand now The Guardian have discovered that the import ban is effective only in the Netherlands.

At present Sony brings the majority of the consoles in to Europe via ports in Rotterdam and Amsterdam which is why LG targeted the Netherlands for the ban. There is nothing stopping Sony from importing the consoles to Europe via France, the UK or any other country.

This might cause Sony a logistical headache and LG could easily apply for more bans in other countries but for the moment this can filed under ‘minor annoyance’ rather than the ‘ OMG! European PS3 crisis’ that many have implied.



Alby_da_Wolf on 03 March 2011

In the end the ones to gather only benefits from this will be EU harbours competing with the Dutch ones. And given how easily the seizing was granted, any company with patent litigations ongoing could preventively (*) desert the Dutch harbours in favour of whichever EU nation will show to be safer during the LG-Sony case.

(*) as timely programming such a thing is a lot less expensive than having to rush it when the worst already happened.



Stwike him, Centuwion. Stwike him vewy wuffly! (Pontius Pilate, "Life of Brian")
A fart without stink is like a sky without stars.
TGS, Third Grade Shooter: brand new genre invented by Kevin Butler exclusively for Natal WiiToo Kinect. PEW! PEW-PEW-PEW!   


Kasz216 on 03 March 2011
Alby_da_Wolf said:
Kasz216 said:
Alby_da_Wolf said:
Kasz216 said:

Booh! said:

[...]
http://www.iprstrust.org/page/basics-faq

Essential patent and essential facility, if you cannot build Bluray player without the LG patents, than those patents are essential. You cited US law, European law is quite more liberal. The difference is that Europe enforces anti-monopoly law, while US never did lately.

Prove it's essential?  Also, that Blu-ray is essential.  Afterall, they don't force liscensing of drugs do they?  That seems... more essential.

As far as I know, for it to be an "Essential Patent" it needs to be for the Industry standard.

Which Blu-ray is not.  DVD still is.  Even if it is considered and Industry Standard you'd have to prove those patents are essential and can't be worked around.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_Association

LG is founding member and member of the board of directors of the Blu-Ray Disc Association. This makes things different, as if those patents were essential for the standard, LG would have committed a "patent ambush". But as it filed a lawsuit, most probably this is not the case, so those patents must be used only in Sony's implementations. But in this case the infringing parts can be replaced, although it would take some time and a lot of money (not only for design and implementation, but also because damages already suffered by LG shold be compensated) to Sony to get out of troubles this way, so an agreement is the most probable outcome.


Most probable, though not definite.  Which is my point.  I expect a settlement will be the obvious way out.  However.  What you should keep in mind is.

They aren't targeting Sony Blu-ray Players. 

They are targeting PS3's and Bravaria TVS. 

So, patent ambushing shouldn't apply, since it's not about the players... but about HD Tvs and videogame systems.

Also a Patent Ambush only applies when information is withheld about patents.  Sony could of full well known of the patents and just infrined on them.

Yes, in fact in this case the patent ambush would apply only if LG deceived the BD Association, of which it is a member, but it looks like these patents don't regard BD. So much the better for us users, we just don't needed this shit furtherly expanding. Curiously, besides Sony haters, you can find in the threads about this news some BD haters that hope Blu-Ray be d0med for what happened and grasp at straws to keep their hope alive.   

And just to stay in the realm of hope and dreams, the best outcome for us users would be that Sony win about PS3 and TVs and LG win about cellphones, but this would establish a high-profile precedent against patent bullying, trolling and retaliation, so, alas, both big companies and patent specialized lawyers will (not explicitly) push against it and more towards an agreement that would keep their power intact.


Really, I'd think what would be best would be the opposite... if they both lose it causes major products to go off the shelves and people raeliz how stupid and untenable patents are.



TruckOSaurus on 03 March 2011

Haven't read the thread but my question is: Why now? The PS3 has been out for more than 4 years, I feel like I'm missing part of the story.



Signature goes here!

Kynes on 03 March 2011
TruckOSaurus said:

Haven't read the thread but my question is: Why now? The PS3 has been out for more than 4 years, I feel like I'm missing part of the story.


Retaliation. Sony sued LG on USA because of some mobile phones, so LG retaliated suing Sony on the PS3.