Innovation: Deepseek, Google, OpenAI, and the EU. Legal Eagles Aloft
February 11, 2025
We have smart software, but the dinobaby continues to do what 80 year olds do: Write the old-fashioned human way. We did give up clay tablets for a quill pen. Works okay.
I have been thinking about the allegations that the Deepseek crowd ripped off US smart software companies. Someone with whom I am not familiar expressed the point of view that the allegation will be probed. With open source goodness whizzing around, I am not sure how would make a distinction between one allegedly open source system and another allegedly open source system will work. I am confident the lawyers will figure innovation out because clever mathematical tricks and software optimization are that group of professionals’ core competency.
The basement sale approach to smart software: Professional, organized, and rewarding. Thanks OpenAI. (No, I did not generate this image with the Deepseek tools. I wouldn’t do that to you, Sam AI-Man.)
And thinking of innovation this morning, I found the write up in the Times of India titled “Google Not Happy With This $4.5 Billion Fine, Here’s What the Company Said.” [Editor’s note: The url is a wonky one indeed. If the link does not resolve, please, don’t write me and complain. Copy the article headline and use Bing or Google to locate a valid source. Failing that, just navigate to the Times of India and hunt for the source document there.] Innovation is the focus of the article, and the annoyance — even indignation bubbling beneath the surface of the Google stance — may foreshadow a legal dust up between OpenAI and Deepseek.
So what’s happening?
The Times of India reports with some delicacy:
Google is set to appeal a record €4.3 billion ($4.5 billion) antitrust fine imposed by the European Union seven years ago, a report claimed. Alphabet-owned company has argued that the penalty unfairly punished the company for its innovation in the Android mobile operating system. The appeal, heard by the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg, comes two years after a lower tribunal upheld the European Commission’s decision, which found Google guilty of using Android to restrict competition. However, the company claimed that its actions benefited consumers and fostered innovation in the mobile market. This new appeal comes after the lower court reduced the fine to 4.1 billion euros ($4.27 billion).
Yes, Google’s business systems and methods foster innovation in the mobile market. The issue is that Google has been viewed an anti competitive by some legal eagles in the US government as behaving in a way that is anti competitive. I recall the chatter about US high technology companies snuffing innovation. Has Google done that with its approach to Android?
The write up reports:
In this case, the Commission failed to discharge its burden and its responsibility and, relying on multiple errors of law, punished Google for its superior merits, attractiveness and innovation.” Lamadrid justified Google’s agreements that require phone manufacturers to pre-install Google Search, the Chrome browser, and the Google Play app store on their Android devices, while also restricting them from adopting rival Android systems. Meanwhile, EU antitrust regulators argued that these conditions restricted competition.
Innovation seems to go hand in hand with pre-installing certain Google applications. The fact that Google allegedly restricts phone companies from “adopting rival Android systems” is a boost to innovation. Is this Google argument food for thought if Google and its Gemini unit decided to sue OpenAI for its smart software innovation.
One thing is clear. Google sees itself as fostering innovation, and it should not be punished for creating opportunities, employment, and benefits for those in the European Union. On the other hand, the Deepseek innovation is possibly improper because it delivered an innovation US high technology outfits did not deliver.
Adding some Chinese five-flavor spice to the recipe is the fact that the Deepseek innovation seems to be a fungible insight about US smart software embracing Google influenced open source methods. The thought that “innovation” will be determined in legal proceedings is interesting.
Is innovation crafted to preserve a dominant market share unfair? Is innovation which undermines US smart software companies improper? The perception of Google as an innovator, from my vantage, has dwindled. On the other hand, my perception of the Deepseek approach strikes me as unique. I have pointed out that the Deepseek innovation seems to deliver reasonably good results with a lower cost method. This is the Shein-Temu approach to competition. It works. Just ask Amazon.
Maybe the US will slap a huge find on Deepseek because the company innovated? The EU has decided to ring its cash register because Google allegedly inhibited innovation.
For technologists, the process of innovation is fraught with legal peril. Who benefits? I would suggest that the lawyers are at the head of the line for the upsides of this “innovation” issue.
Stephen E Arnold, February 11, 2025
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