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Broken Patent System? Google, Apple Disagree

Posted by kdawson on from the with-a-straight-face dept.

Whiney Mac Fanboy writes "The AlwaysOn Stanford Summit featured the panel discussion 'The Patent Crisis: Crossroads for the Business of Technology.' Speakers included patent lawyers from Google, IBM, and Apple. According to The Register, Google's and Apple's patent jocks had diametrically opposing views. Google's head of patents believes the system is in crisis: 'The Patent Office is overburdened,' she said. 'The volume of patents going in is huge. And the quality of patents coming out — it could be better.' But Apple's chief patent counsel said the US patent system was 'not broken' and 'not in crisis,' calling it 'the best in the world.'"

3 of 230 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's Official: Apple & Google are Evil by Vokkyt · · Score: 3, Informative
    RTFA, not the summary, which is a poor one at that.

    From TFA:

    But he acknowledged that there was a "huge bubble" of patent assertions that needs to be scaled back. "The question with this bubble market, as with any bubble market, is 'Can we solve it without a crisis arising?'" he said.

    Lutton believes that the key to fixing the country's patent problems lies with the courts, not the patent office. "Most patents issued are never litigated and never licensed," he said. "We need to focus on fixing the litigation system. That's most relevant."

    The issue that Lutton takes with Google's stance is that it's destructive and costly, and basically calls for something else, without any real indication of what that else is. Apple certainly has had fun with patent whores in the past, but they usually come out on top or take care of the issue. Lutton wasn't saying that the patent system is absolutely perfect, that is, without flaws or error. What they did acknowledge is that given the alternative options in other parts of the world, it's best for them. Why is that so bad?

  2. Re:Google is right... by sheldon · · Score: 3, Informative

    I knew a guy who went on to be a patent examiner.

    As he explained it, they were instructed to be very lenient on accepting patents, because it was simply taken for granted that any complaints or problems would be handled in the courts.

    That's the way businesses preferred it to be done, and perhaps that is Apple's position here.

  3. Re:Google is right... by PatrickMMoore · · Score: 5, Informative

    You're absolutely right. When I was fresh outta college and working as an examiner, I would use whatever f***ed up logic that made my boss happy with my production numbers. I'm not proud of that fact, but it did make my life considerably better.

    I am agreeing with you that the system is pretty jacked up and no longer encourages innovation (which is what it was meant for in the first place. Thomas Jefferson would probably be working for Google if he were alive today.