Foss Patents Founder Florian Mueller Taking Money From Oracle

by Kyle in Android, Google, Mobile, Tech
Comments Off on Foss Patents Founder Florian Mueller Taking Money From Oracle 0 Like 1,804

The interwebs went wild on Friday when it was revealed that trusted patent blogger Florian Mueller is actually being paid by Oracle and may be in line for a top paying job with the company that’s embattled in a bitter patent suit with Google.

Over the past couple of years, the self proclaimed patent expert has been quoted on every site in the tech blogsphere from Engadget to Yahoo, and even the likes of The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and CNET. It was assumed with his patent rhetoric and court documents all over his site that he knew what he was talking about. No one took into consideration the fact that until just a couple of months ago his site was hosted by Blogger.com and not even his own domain name.

Mueller has received a lot of criticism for his anti-Google position, however it’s now surfaced that he has actually been paid by Oracle which explains his anti-Google position.

Mueller has recently posted an “ethics” statement of sorts on his blog which it seems that he feels relieves him from any potential backlash:

That said, as a believer in transparency I would like to inform you that Oracle has very recently become a consulting client of mine. We intend to work together for the long haul on mostly competition-related topics including, for one example, FRAND licensing terms.

More after the break
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Developing: Motorola Mobility wins injunction against Apple in Germany, apparently

by Cameron Wright in Apple, Google, Mobile
2 Comments 0 Like 1,177

“As the patent litigation world turns”

[scribd id=71622154 key=key-2l51dt9nj83mi07adrm2 mode=list]

Apparently, Apple was just handed a major loss in the biggest European market. Unlike the injunctions against Samsung that Apple has won in Germany, the Netherlands, and, most recently Australia, this is not a preliminary ruling.  Florian Mueller explains here,

We’re not talking about a preliminary injunction, but this one is in effect now and it could be appealed and lifted.

He also notes:

The court ruling doesn’t say which particular products Motorola Mobility accused of infringement, but since the U.S. equivalents of both patents-in-suit were also asserted by Motorola Mobility in federal lawsuits in the United States, it appears that the entire range of Apple mobile devices is affected by this decision.

So, at this moment, Motorola has the ability to stop Apple from selling any devices within the confines of German borders. This is a very significant win. The damage could be huge. According to Mueller if this were to pan out, Apple will be required to pay damages on any possible infringement from April 19, 2003 to the present day.

The patents that are allegedly being enforced are:

  1. EP (European Patent) 1010336 (B1) on a “method for performing a countdown function during a mobile-originated transfer for a packet radio system”; this is the European equivalent of U.S. Patent No. 6,359,898
  2. EP (European Patent) 0847654 (B1) on a “multiple pager status synchronization system and method”; this is the European equivalent of U.S. Patent No. 5,754,119

Head over to FOSS Patents for a more in-depth (professional) analysis.