Lenovo stop selling things in germany for now

[rockaut]

Summary

According to a new article Lenovo is stopping sales in germany because of a patent dispute with nokia over h.264 video codecs. As it seams they haven't bought/payed their codec licenses.

 

Quotes

Quote

Keine Desktop-PCs, Notebooks, Tablets und Smartphones mehr von Lenovo in Deutschland: Lenovo fehlen Lizenzen zur Nutzung des Video-Codecs H.264.

No desktop-pcs, laptops, tablets and smartphones from lenovo in germany: lenovo is missing licences for usage of h.264 video codecs.

 

My thoughts

That sounds might be pretty bad for them . But if they really just "forgot" to pay fees ... I mean they are a multi-billion world-wide selling corporate, whoever done bad is screwed I guess.

 

Sources

https://www.heise.de/news/Patentstreit-mit-Nokia-Lenovo-stoppt-Verkauf-in-Deutschland-4935904.html

[Mark Kaine]

Motorola phone prices to skyrocket in 1... 2... 3...

[19_blackie_73]

Good thing i got the thinkpad for my girlfriend a few weeks back.... They were already short in supply cause amd made too good of a processor

[Nayr438]

Interesting, this must be why Fedora doesn't ship H.264 out of the box even though Cisco has a open-source implementation. https://www.openh264.org/ Which upon reading the FAQ says they are not responsible for patent holders, but covers royalties.

I think patents like these should die out, it's quite literally the definition of a software monopoly. I however am not that familiar with patents to really comment however.

 

1 hour ago, rockaut said:

That sounds might be pretty bad for them . But if they really just "forgot" to pay fees ... I mean they are a multi-billion world-wide selling corporate, whoever done bad is screwed I guess.

From what I gather, they didn't forget, they just didn't want to cooperate. https://www.brandingirononline.info/gadget/3352/nokia-tried-to-implement-a-directive-against-lenovo-seeks-to-block-lenovo-sales-over-patent-licensing/ With Lenovos push towards the open-source community, I wonder whats really going on.

[Mark Kaine]

2 hours ago, Nayr438 said:

I think patents like these should die out, it's quite literally the definition of a software monopoly. I however am not that familiar with patents to really comment however

Well tbf they could just make a similar compatible code and call it hL.363, but that would cost money, something they're obviously not willing to do since leeching off the work of others is so much cheaper! 

 

3 hours ago, rockaut said:

That sounds might be pretty bad for them

 

My thoughts are the opposite, they must be really well off if they can afford to lose a huge market just like that.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Bombastinator]

Germany is EU, so while they might not be specifically on sale in Germany might they still be purchased from France or wherever?

[SpaceGhostC2C]

8 hours ago, Nayr438 said:

I think patents like these should die out, it's quite literally the definition of a software monopoly. I however am not that familiar with patents to really comment however.

All patents are monopolies, by definition. Patents and copyright are monopolies granted by law to whoever successfully files a patent / copyright at the respective office. The expiry date of a patent or copyright is the day the legal monopoly ends.

[Dabombinable]

6 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Germany is EU, so while they might not be specifically on sale in Germany might they still be purchased from France or wherever?

If I remember correctly, France does not acknowledge software patents. Which is why VLC has support for a significant amount of proprietary codecs - because VideoLan is based in France.

[ausham]

What were they using h.264 for? And why not just remove it for German models?

[Drama Lama]

15 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Germany is EU, so while they might not be specifically on sale in Germany might they still be purchased from France or wherever?

@Bombastinator

Yes the EU has banned geoblocking ( example if you visit Amazon.fr and you live in Germany, they can’t force you to use Amazon.de )

 

the models are all still available at German retailers just not directly from Lenovo 

Edited October 23, 2020 by Drama Lama

[TehDwonz]

2 minutes ago, Drama Lama said:

Yes the EU has banned geoblocking ( example if you visit Amazon.fr and you live in Germany, they can’t force you to use Amazon.de )

Yep, I use the .de site sometimes from the UK, as they have different inventories.

[WereCat]

14 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Germany is EU, so while they might not be specifically on sale in Germany might they still be purchased from France or wherever?

yes

[Drama Lama]

9 hours ago, ausham said:

What were they using h.264 for? And why not just remove it for German models?

It’s used for media encoding.

the encoders are built into the processors ( only those with graphics cards ) or graphics cards so they can’t simply remove it. Lenovo sells only computers with integrated or dedicated gpu. 

The owner of the paten often doesn’t charge the chipmakers ( intel Nvidia amd and Qualcomm)  but rather the OEMs ( Lenovo and others ) who are using the chips

why? 

Probably because they can easier set the OEMs under pressure than the chipmakers because they could just make  a new standard. The OEMs mainly rely on devices with chips that have the Encoder and have therefore almost no choice.

[ausham]

3 hours ago, Drama Lama said:

It’s used for media encoding.

the encoders are built into the processors ( only those with graphics cards ) or graphics cards so they can’t simply remove it. Lenovo sells only computers with integrated or dedicated gpu. 

The owner of the paten often doesn’t charge the chipmakers ( intel Nvidia amd and Qualcomm)  but rather the OEMs ( Lenovo and others ) who are using the chips

why? 

Probably because they can easier set the OEMs under pressure than the chipmakers because they could just make  a new standard. The OEMs mainly rely on devices with chips that have the Encoder and have therefore almost no choice.

So its like like they installed the codec in a media player? but the hardware suports it they are going after them?  the fudged up. I would not pay the fee ether.