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37 Android Patent Lawsuits

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the something-to-think-about dept.

An anonymous reader writes "37 lawsuits have been filed against Android in a little more than a year, the latest one of them being Microsoft's lawsuit against Barnes & Noble, Foxconn and Inventec. ReadWriteWeb says 'the number of patent lawsuits related to the Android operating system is unprecedented' and shows an infographic that is also available on Twitpic and as a PDF file, on Scribd. The first two suits were filed in March 2010 by Apple and MobileMedia against HTC. The original source of the chart, the FOSS Patents blog, says that Android's market share is only one factor, other reasons being that Google's patent portfolio is 'far too weak for what's undertaken in connection with Android'; that Google doesn't do 'inbound licensing' from trolls; and that Google tends to ignore patent issues because Google itself is rarely sued: in most of these cases, Android device makers are under attack."

2 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Poor Graph, D+ at best by rufty_tufty · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That is a poor and misleading graph for several reasons not least:
    There is no comparison to other software platforms
    The style chosen only escalates, the graph doesn't go down when the court case is resolved in either party's favour.
    Ambiguous because not all court cases are equal, some cases could be more valid than others.

    FUD, IMO

    --
    "The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
  2. Re:Android is a threat...really? by wierd_w · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Well...

    Lets browse the tablet internet market for a second...

    For IOS, we have Apple's iPad. Strategy Analytics says that:
    IOS went from 95.5% market share of tablets in Q3 to 75.3% in Q4 2010.

    Then we have "everyone else":
    Android went from 2.3% in Q3 to 21.6% in Q4.
    "all others" went from 2.3 in Q3 to 3.1 in Q4.

    To me, this looks like android is spreading like wildfire in the tablet space. It snatched up more than 20% of market share in ONE QUARTER. While it is doubtful that growth like that is sustainable, even modest growth after a spurt like that could really put the screws to Apple.