The Public Privacy

Category: Competition

Foolish patents or the inventive step of idiocy

January 12, 2016 / / 0 Comments

It is very frustrating that the rationale of a legal mechanism such as patents, intended to enable inventors to recover from their creative efforts, the investment of time and of financial resources that they have put into the development  of new and non-obvious inventions, and therefore promote innovation, has been subverted for the monetary compensations it entails when infringement occurs.

Patents confer an exclusive right upon their owner, enabling him to exclude others from making, using, importing, and selling the patented innovation for a limited period of time and making the practice of those acts by third parties dependent of an authorization of the patent owner, i.e., a license.

In this context, patents are intrinsically linked to competition. A particular concern is to not attribute such an exclusive right to creations that do not amount to an invention, i.e., based upon a basic or common function which does not contain any inventive step considering the prior art. Indeed, patenting something that is elementarily required to produce a given functionality would amount to conferring to the right owner a monopoly that would prevent any further competition and, consequently, future innovation.

In the computer software context, considering that most patents are conferred for very restricted elements of a given product, a particular danger is the development of patent thickets, which can be described as a web of interdependent and overlapping IP rights which require new inventions to depend upon licensing from different patent owners. This is so because it is possible to own a patent on an element crucial for the proper functioning of other parts of a software product.

Understandably, patent trolls can find here the greatest of motivations.

It is important to distinguish, in this context, design patents and utility patens, with which most of us are more familiar with.

Utility patents are meant for new, non-obvious and, as their name might have you guessing, useful inventions, having into consideration the specific functionality of the product.

By contrast, design patents address new, non-obvious, non-functional, aesthetic or ornamental aspects of products, provided that the design is not exclusively mandated by the function of the product. In practice, this amounts to demonstrate that alternative designs enabling the same function exist. Therefore, these patents are often associated with the ‘look and feel’ of the product.

As with any other patent, the exclusive right conferred by design-patents aim to prevent competitors from copying another company’s products designs. Hence, these patents assume particular importance when a product presents key features which enable consumers to immediately associate a design with a particular brand.

Design patents have been particularly popular in the field of computer software, namely in regards of the user experience and user-interfaces. From what I have had the chance to learn last trimester in the respective module of the post-grad program I am currently undertaking, I would risk saying that computer software patents do not really need any more complexities added to them. In fact, I am still recovering from the European Patent Office’s case law regarding what constitutes the proper technical character of an invention.

Thus said, a design patent was at stake, among other claims, in the Apple v. Samsung case regarding the ‘slide-to-unlock’ patent, describing a way to unlock a touch screen device. I still fail to comprehend how taking the general existing logic of opening gates, doors or fences and applying it to a computerized device passes the assessment of the inventive step test.

Similarly, just recently, among other allegations, Microsoft claimed that its patent over the design of a slider, which it named “User Interface for a Portion of a Display Screen” and which allows users to zoom in or out of documents, has been infringed by Corel.

Just so you get a complete idea of the claim, you can find below the design at stake:

Microsoft slider.

In its defence, it must be noted that the patent claim does not refer to a generic slide, but to the specific design of the slider and its placement in the bottom right corner of the User Interface.

Disregarding the consideration if the design at stake qualifies as new and non-obvious version of existing designs (i.e., prior art), such claim – if successful – might have serious economic repercussions for Corel as it will entitle Microsoft to all of the profits attributed to that design even if respecting a part of the product and not the entire product.

Nevertheless, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has qualified this claim as the most stupid patent of December 2015. And despite any good will one might want to manifest in favour of Microsoft, it is indeed difficult to escape the obviousness of all this nonsense.

Google Break: The new reality show on the EU channel

December 2, 2014 / / 0 Comments
Let's all break Google, the new EU h(l)obby!

Let’s all break Google, the new EU h(l)obby!

I like the Google search service. I like it because it is the best at what it does. It is a fact that Google’s dominant position in the EU market is not due to the lack of competitors or due to a weaker competition. There are other big companies which provide the same sort of services. Microsoft Bing, Yahoo, Duck Duck Go… But they just don’t do it as well. Google’s dominance comes from a vast majority of EU citizens preferring its services over those provided by its competitors. It hasn’t grown into a verb by mere chance. This is what competition on the merits is all about. Theoretically, there is nothing wrong with dominance legitimately acquired. What about in practice?

In practice, Google has been having full-size antitrust problems regarding how it manages the search results presented. It has been alleged that those are manipulated in order to promote the company’s own services at its competitors’ expense and to be favourable to certain business in which it has interest while being detrimental to others. The decline of once very influential publishing industries under the impact of the internet has most certainly contributed to the problem.

It is a fact that Google crosses the results from its search algorithms with links to its own related web services, such as Youtube, Maps, News, which expands the format of search results beyond a meagre index of links. From the user’s viewpoint, this is a good thing. From its competitors’ perspective, not so much. While Google is obviously dominant, it is yet to be confirmed if it actually abuses its position in the EU market. Nevertheless, legitimate fears that this self-promotion may be harmful to users is increasingly prevailing among the EU regulators, to which the weight of certain points of interests might not have been completely irrelevant.

In this context, the European Parliament just voted a resolution on “consumer rights in the digital single market”, proposed by the European People’s Party (EPP) and the Social and Democrats (S&D), the two biggest political blocs of the European Parliament.

If I would be remotely naïve, I would consider that it is certainly a coincidence that Andreas Schwab, one of the MEP who proposed the resolution, is tied to the law firm which represents some of the German publishers against Google… Or that the fact that the two MEPs who proposed the resolution are national citizens from Germany and Spain, precisely the countries where legislative initiatives have recently been taken in order to make Google pay for links, is not more than a happenstance.

Anyway, in the paragraph 15 of the resolution, despite being outlined the relevance of search engines for the functioning of a competitive digital single market, the European Commission is called upon to apply existing legislation and to consider if ‘unbundling’ the search engines operations of Internet technologies companies with activities in the EU from the rest of their commercial business services may boost competition in the EU market.

In a less politically correct way to put it, companies which promote their own non-search services through their search engine should have those services disaggregated. To what end? Well, what would be achieved through this action is not clear.

It is, however, evocative of previous statements of German politicians who considered that Google’s dominant position should be broken. In the same line, several of the complainants against Google – once again, inadvertently, mostly German publishers – called for this separation.

As far as I am aware, the European Commission has never requested the break-up of any company for anti-competitive practices. In fact, structural remedies as such should only be imposed if there is no equally effective solution, if this latter is more burdensome, or there is a risk for repeated infringement. Nonetheless, in this case, it seems very unlikely that it can be considered that Google’s competitors actually need Google’s infrastructure in order to be able to provide their own services. Anyway, for Google to actually be ‘broken up’, it would have to be demonstrated that it has abused its dominance in the search or advertising markets.

Needless to say, the separation of its search engine operations from its other lines of business would be seriously harmful for Google. As it is well known, Google supplements the results from its search algorithms with advertising which is its primary source of income. In case of separation, its value would certainly drop, its databases would be less complete and its search engine service would end up being less effective. Ironically, the measure would be quite disadvantageous to users of the search service.

Moreover, and more gravely, the resolution considers that “search process and results should be unbiased” and calls on promoting “non-discriminatory online search” in its paragraph 17, where it calls on the Commission to prevent any abuse in the marketing of interlinked services by search engine operators:

when operating search engines for users, the search process and results should be unbiased in order to keep internet searches non-discriminatory, to ensure more competition and choice for users and consumers and to maintain the diversity of sources of information; notes, therefore, that indexation, evaluation, presentation and ranking by search engines must be unbiased and transparent.

It appears that the underlying principle is that, considering that consumers do prefer its search services over those provided by its competitors, consumers shouldn’t have to use a search provider’s bundle service just because that company actually promotes its other own services. One should ask, though, if it is reasonable to demand from a search engine service provider to not reflect on the search results presented any prominence of its own services and to self-marketing?

Furthermore, while one could believe that there are some good intentions behind this ‘search neutrality’ goal, it seems that the intention is for providers to reveal their algorithm and how the results are determined, in order to ensure that the process is fairly conduct and is not unfavourable to its competitors. Nevertheless, the ‘search neutrality’ concept is just ludicrous. Search is inherently biased according to the criteria set. That is how search is supposed to be. It should return the most completed version of the results we ask to find and not results manipulated by the strongest website owner.

Coincidently, it reminds of the comical German ‘ancillary copyright’ which was intended to license revenue from Google for indexing publishers content and of Günther Oettinger own stance on the issue. So one should really worry if this is just not the first step for a European ancillary copyright for press publishers.

To be true, the document does not mention Google or any specific search engine. However, it is very likely to be particularly directed to Google as the company has a European market share of over 90%.

Despite its non-binding nature, the fact that the European Parliament has no initiate legislative powers and certainly has no competence regarding the unbundling of companies, the resolution shows that the European Parliament is getting involved in a matter that falls within the jurisdiction of the Commission, considering the ongoing proceedings aiming to address the competition concerns on the market of internet search engines.

Anyway, it is certainly intended to put pressure on Margrethe Vestager, the new EU Competition Commissioner, considering that Joaquin Almunia, its predecessor, was unable to reach a satisfactory settlement regarding the complaints and the allegations concerning its market power. In this regard, Joaquin Almunia considered that Google could not be broken up under existing competition legislation. Until now, Margrethe Vestager is being cautious regarding the next steps to be taken.

Thus said, I guess this is just the beginning of this saga… But, considering all this, I cannot help being pessimist. I am quite worried regarding what may follow.

Open Competition or the Dominant Undertaking Crusade

September 21, 2014 / / 0 Comments
Google vs EU?

Google vs EU?

Google is undergoing a rough time in the European Union, being pressured on diverse fronts. There’s the famous ECJ ruling, and the polemics surrounding the collecting of data by Street View cars. Some think that the company should be broken up. Others see it as a threat to their sovereignty. But maybe it is all about fear, as admitted by Mathias Döpfner, chief executive of Axel Springer, a German publishing giant, in an open letter to Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman. Some worry that big companies will be disincentive to invest in Europe.

Thus said, what is the fuss now?

Well, actually it is an already an old question…Over the years, Google has been facing increasing criticism regarding its search business’ dominant position in Europe.

Google’s market share in Europe is up to 90%, so there is no doubt that it has a dominant position in the European market. According to settled case law of the CJEU, dominance is a position of economic strength enjoyed by an undertaking which enables it to prevent effective competition being maintained on the relevant market by affording it the power to behave to an appreciable extent independently of its competitors, its customers and ultimately of the consumers.[1]See Case 27/76 United Brands Company and United Brands Continentaal BV v Commission [1978] ECR 207, paragraph 65, and Case 85/76 Hoffmann-La Roche & Co. AG v Commission (1979) ECR 461, paragraph … Continue reading

It is a well accepted principle that, having reached a dominant position, the concerned undertaking has a special responsibility not to allow its conduct to impair genuine undistorted competition on the market.[2]See Case 322/81Michelin, ECR 3461 (1983) paragraph 57

Therefore, a dominant position is not in itself illegal. However, according to article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), if an undertaking exploits this position to eliminate competition, it is considered be an abuse, which is deemed to be an anti-competitive conduct.

One must be well aware that a competitive market is desirable for the competitive quality and price it offers, the choice it allows and the innovation it brings. The ultimate beneficiary of competition is the consumer of a good or a service, i.e., all of us. It might not come as a surprise that less successful competitors might try to reduce the market share of a dominant undertaking in their favour.  That is what competing is all about: to try to be better than your competitors, try to be the best at something. But one should expect that they will try to do so through competition! One should not be wary of a dominant position simply due to to its huge market share or to the amount of power it entails, although it shall not be left unrestrained either. A successful company shall not be ‘punished’ or persecuted for its success. The legitimacy of the dominant undertaking’ activities shall always be accessed according to the consumer’s interests.

Back in 2010, the European Commission opened an antitrust investigation into allegations that Google Inc. has abused a dominant market position, in violation of European Union rules (Article 102 TFEU), following 18 (eighteen) complaints presented by its competitors regarding Google’s online search and search advertising.

In short, despite the four areas of concern raised by European Commission, the focus of the case was Google’s vertical search results and the extent to which it favoured its own specialized search services, reducing the visibility of results from competing sites.

Late February, the European Commission announced (here) a settlement proposal from Google in the context of the ongoing antitrust investigation – the third from Google after the previous two were criticized as not going far enough – which it deemed satisfactory.

In this proposal, Google has committed to visibly display links of the services of three competitors, selected through an objective method, whenever it promotes its own specialized search services on its web page following a search query. Some of these links would require the competitors to pay Google.[3]You can better understand the proposal from the screenshots as shown here

This proposal received a strong public backlash, namely, of course, from Google’s competitors, apparently very concerned with the users’ interest which is, as previously mentioned in the text, a valid point, however not as convincing as intended, coming as it comes from less successful competitors.

For instance, the FairSearch group, which Microsoft backs, argued that

[it]requires rivals to pay Google for placement similar to that of Google’s own material, undercutting the ability of other to compete and provide consumer choice. This will be done through an auction mechanism that requires participating companies to hand the vast majority of their profits to Google.

Several French and German publishers and companies, among which Axel Springer, created an initiative called the ‘Open Internet Project’, insisting that the commitments proposed by Google to bring this investigation to an end are not sufficient to safeguard a competitive online market. The claims can be accessed on the group’s website.

In June, the European Commission invited complainants to react to Google’s proposal and received a significant negative feedback from press publishers, pressing the European Commission to reject Google’s proposals and proceed to a formal charge with infringement, stating as follows:

(…) the most prominent areas of any search results pages would be reserved for Google’s own services, independent of their quality, while all rival services have to accept inferior visibility even if they are far more relevant to a search query.

And they added:

The only relevant “commitment” is the addition of three Rival Links’ whenever Google puts links to its own monetized services first. However, in the most relevant commercial areas rivals will have to bid for a Rival Link in an auction and pay Google the highest price for a click. As a result, websites would not be ranked by relevance anymore but primarily according to the price they are willing to pay Google. As a new type of ad, Rival Links are not a concession but a new revenue stream for Google. As rivals could always bid for AdWords-ads, their situation is not improved.

No one can blame the settlement’s critics for any lack of coherence as these reactions are in line with those of lead complainant Foundem, who sustained that the proposed rival links will consume the majority of rivals’ profits and will not be selected according to relevance, merit, or quality.

Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, recently addressed this issue, under the title ‘We built Google for users, not websites’, stating:

To date, no regulator has objected to Google giving people direct answers to their questions for the simple reason that it is better for users.

Facing the described context, the European Commission might have to seek to obtain more concessions from Google.

As the current Commission’s will be replaced in November, it is very unlikely that Joaquín Almunia, Vice-President of the European Commission and Commissioner responsible for competition, will be able to attain a final consensus within the Commission by then and the decision will most certainly be postponed in order to be taken under the next Commission.

Thus being said, Google is obviously trying to avoid formal charges. Of course it has no interest in having to pay a high fine nor damaging its reputation. But one might wonder if any compromise will ever be sufficient for its competitors.

From the several points raised by complainants, it seems sometimes that the intention is to artificially propel traffic to websites that compete with Google. That should not Google’s obligation. That wouldn’t even be fair for Google, nor in the best interests of consumers. And it would imply a senseless and unjustified advantage for competitors at the expenses of Google and, ultimately, consumers.

What must be ensured is the effectiveness of competition on the merits in the areas of specialized search and search advertising and, more importantly, the desirable effectiveness of the principle of Open Internet. The principle of Open Internet is defined as the enabling of Internet users to access the content, applications and services of their choice. It is therefore closely linked to the principle of Net Neutrality, meaning the ability for consumers to access and distribute information or run applications and services of their choice.

But an Open Internet also closely linked to competition among network, services and content providers, as it implies that each provider have the opportunity to test the value of its projects in the online marketplace. The door shall remain wide open for the next big company that will shake the online world. One must not forget that back in the 90’s, in the heydays of the internet, search engines as AltaVista and Yahoo were as popular as Google is now. Google outran them due to users’ preferences. And it must be guaranteed that consumers will be able to know about and use other services in the future if they prefer so.

Therefore, as competition and the principles of an Open Internet and Net Neutrality serve and benefit ultimately the consumers, competitors are not the main aim in themselves. Although they undeniably benefit from that protection, any confusion between the interests of consumers and of competitors shall be avoided.

Google shall not be prevented from improving its own services because its competitors are not as successful or are unable to keep up. So the suggestion of German justice minister Heiko Maas for Google to reveal its ranking algorithm in order to be more transparent appears as senseless.

What must be guaranteed is that users are informed of the existence of the competing websites, their relevance to the search, and are given the possibility to access them, thus providing users with a genuine choice between competing services. This must be the core of the European Commission’s assessment regarding the further concessions it might demand from Google in the future.

References

References
↑1 See Case 27/76 United Brands Company and United Brands Continentaal BV v Commission [1978] ECR 207, paragraph 65, and Case 85/76 Hoffmann-La Roche & Co. AG v Commission (1979) ECR 461, paragraph 38
↑2 See Case 322/81Michelin, ECR 3461 (1983) paragraph 57
↑3 You can better understand the proposal from the screenshots as shown here

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