FOSSPatents is like the FOX News of the blogsphere - it's fair and balanced.

If you ever visit FOSSPatents within a few sentences you will get the impression that it's a blog written by someone whose sole job is to spin anti-Android stories. There should be no surprises as it's run by Florian Mueller a blogger who is paid by Microsoft and Oracle, the arch-enemies of Android.

Mueller, the Microsoft paid blogger, is often bashed for spinning anti-Android stories and twisting facts. Mueller claims to be a 'consultant' of Microsoft and Oracle, but as Nilay Patel of The Verge rightly noted:

...Mueller's enormous volume of output on FOSS Patents fairly raises the question of when he finds the time to do any serious consulting work for Oracle in between his diligently granular tracking of several international patent lawsuits, his frequent media appearances, and his additional work as a paid consultant to Microsoft.

FOSSPatent smartly downplays the victories made by Android players, injects his own 'expert' opinion against such victories which are 'copy-pasted' by lazy bloggers. He makes bold claims which are almost always wrong.

Now Groklaw, an extremely reputed site, has pointed out some flaws in recent FOSSPatent blog regarding HTC-Apple agreement.

Pamela Jones of Groklaw writes:

FOSSPatents has published what it claims is the redacted version of the Apple-HTC agreement settling all claims between them. I didn't link to it or write about it

    1) because he doesn't say where he got it, so I could not verify whether it was legitimate or reliable, and

    2) because I respect the court's right to decide what is made public and what is not.

And it looks like I was right to wait and see.

The now filed stipulation, titled "Stipulation of Dismissal of Entire Action," in the HTC v. Apple litigation in Delaware states clearly that Apple's claims are dismissed without prejudice but HTC's are dismissed *with* prejudice. That directly contradicts what FOSSPatents claimed was in the 'settlement agreement'. His article claims that both parties claims were dismissed *without* prejudice.

In his article, at fosspatents.com/2012/11/apple-htc-license-agreement-would.html, he wrote:

    5. What's clearly unusual is that the dismissals of the parties' various U.S. actions will be dismissals without prejudice, theoretically keeping the door open to future reassertions. This is presumably part of the protection that Apple wanted against a change of control. The change-of-control rules and the kind of dismissal applies to both parties, but realistically, Apple is not going to be acquired during the ten-year term, while HTC is small enough that many other industry players could afford a deal. If anyone wants to buy HTC now, it's still possible, but the Apple agreement won't benefit the new owner (unless the new owner previously secures Apple's consent).

That appears to be incorrect information, judging from the actual stipulation language filed in this US litigation between the parties. What might the explanation be? Maybe what he found is an authentic copy and, not being a lawyer or trained in US law in any way, he just misunderstood it? What else might be inaccurate in the account, then? Maybe it's an earlier draft? Maybe the stipulation is wrong? (I doubt that very much, but I'm listing all the possibilities I can think of.) Maybe I'm misreading something? We'll have to wait and see. Perhaps FOSSPatents can tell the world the source of the version he obtained, so we can get to the bottom of it.

Just trying to keep up with all the misinformation out there. Sooooo much of it. This is why I rarely get a day off and never got to actually retire. The misinformation seems to never quit, and with legal coverage -- as opposed to propaganda, headline seeking or covering the Kardashians -- accuracy is vital.

My advice is simple: rely on what you find on PACER or on checkable information. If you can't check it yourself, how do you know it's so? That is why I always give you a way to check.

And my advice to fellow bloggers and journalists is - if you are covering these patent cases, Groklaw is the source you should be following and not some Microsoft paid FUDester.

You can add Groklaw's RSS feed to your reader.