from Wikipedia
In a look at an older patent infringement case, it seems possible that Apple’s current ascendency could be due to Microsoft’s stupidity in copying patented software.
Could the iPod, and everything since, have been partially funded because of Microsoft’s thievery?
Recently, Oracle may have caught Google redhanded in a patent infringement case. That sounded familiar.
Microsoft also got caught redhanded doing this with Apple’s Quicktime software about 10 years ago. They knowingly used code from Apple in their own software. No big deal because they had copied Apple before and had gotten away with it with regards to Apple’s GUI, at least as far as Apple was concerned.
But there was one big difference this time – Steve Jobs had been forced out at Apple before that first lawsuit was resolved. In the Quicktime case – which had started in 1994 and had dragged on for several years – Steve had returned to Apple and the result was quite different. Apple had originally asked for a multi-billion dollar settlement from Microsoft.
The result was both much smaller and, possibly, much larger.
Publicly, there was a settlement with Microsoft – Apple got $150 million from Microsoft, Microsoft continued to support Apple software and Apple would use Internet Explorer as its primary browser. However there was some fine print in there about also finally settling the GUI case, the Quicktime case and some patent swaps.
What is intriguing and possibly ironic, about these non-public parts of the settlement is that there is some expectation that Apple got a lot of money from the settlement, much more than the $150 million in the public announcement.
It wasn’t until 1998 that Apple began selling off its shares in ARM, and those sales took place over several years. Prior to that, how did Apple manage to spend nearly two billion dollars more than it earned across two years, lose 14% of its income, and still manage to sit on the same $1.2 billion in cash without pawning anything?
Possibly a whole lot more:
It is rumored that Apple was ready to finally win a much bigger suit (1997) based on Microsoft’s theft of QuickTime technology (via Canyon). Steve Jobs used this leverage to get Microsoft to do a patent “swap” where Microsoft pays Apple $500M-$2B over 4 years, and Microsoft also coincidentally bought some Apple stock ($150M) and started playing nice. Microsoft agreed to make Mac Apps for the next few years, and some other PR moves. Of course the press only reported the parts that reflected well on MS.
The money Microsoft paid for the ‘patent swap’ would have come between 1997 and 2001. The iPod was released on October 23, 2001– wouldn’t it be ironic if that bolus of money from Microsoft was what funded the beginning of the Apple story?
Perhaps Apple is where it is today only because Microsoft was stupid enough to use copied code? Apple might just be a footnote now if Microsoft had been a little more ethical.
If so, that has to be the most sustaining victory for Jobs, as Microsoft’s own ascendency was from its original copying of Apple’s GUI.
This would be a much better movie than making one about Google.
