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What If Android Lost the Patent War?
adeelarshad82 writes "The patent system is certainly complex, especially when it comes to smartphones. The Financial Times estimates that as many as 250,000 patents are at stake in a smartphone. Industry titans like Microsoft, Nokia, and Apple have tens of thousands of patents each, but Google's portfolio is reportedly on the low end — 'under 1,000.' Taking advantage of the opportunity, Apple has its patent strategy aimed squarely at the number one rival to its iOS mobile operating system, Android, which is now embedded in 40 percent of all U.S. smartphones compared to Apple's 26.6 percent. Apple's lawyers have been aggressively suing Android manufacturers HTC and Samsung for various technologies, from the 'look and feel' to how it connects to broadband networks. A recently published article takes a deep dive into the lawsuits' possible outcomes and their effect on end users."
I'd be more interested in reading what would happen if software was considered un-patentable tomorrow and all software patents rendered void.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
The Financial Times estimates that as many as 250,000 patents are at stake in a smartphone. Industry titans like Microsoft, Nokia, and Apple have tens of thousands of patents each, but Google's portfolio is reportedly on the low end — 'under 1,000.'
Luckily patents are not created equally and I would imagine that companies decades older than Google and with far more product lines, areas of business, etc have more patents. Is this really grounds for assuming Android is teetering upon a rain slick precipice of darkness?
... er Lawyer guidance modules. Legions and legions of lawyers. Row upon row of mindless litigant bastards that will close ranks when one of their number is befallen by a fatal case of morals or common sense.
I think patents are kind of like nuclear warheads and mutually assured destruction requires only that you have a couple thousand strategically positioned with MIRV
My work here is dung.
Software patents are a pox on this nation. They undermine the system, stifle, rather than motivation, innovation, and are used as clubs by the bullies in industry.
The idea that I can "create" something intangible, easily replicated, and quite literally out of nothing simply by typing some characters on a keyboard is absolutely insane, and should never have been allowed in the first place. Had the system existed like this centuries ago, the book market would have been driven into the ground by publishers who owned the patent on "arranging characters on a page to create words and express ideas".
And the fact hat Apple is choosing to beat Android into submission with them, rather than make a superior product, is very telling indeed.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/h_counts.htm More patents were granted this year than in the first 100 years of usa history. Most of them useless. Many of them duplicates of other patents. Some of them on DNA found in nature.
You should care because if Android phones lose the entire US market, they will become much less profitable to make. As a result, companies will either spend less money making them or raise their prices, since engineering costs will now be amortized over a smaller number of sales. Likewise, app developers will shift their focus towards iOS, so that they can reach the US market.
End result, Android phones become more expensive, lose their edge on hardware, and get fewer apps developed for them.
Economies are interconnected. Don't think for one moment that bad things happening in one part of the world won't ripple over and affect you.
Is Florian Mueller the king of Slashdot? It seems so since he gets mentioned more than any other single person.
Florian Mueller is the current more vocal MS shill in the war against google. Is is doing the same role as Enderle does, only Enderle is by now completely discredited, and some still quote Mueller as if he knew what he is talking about. As usual, your best source is Groklaw, they've discredited many of Mueller's ravings already.
So? Why should the rest of the world care? I'm seriously asking. How will the rest of the world be affected by a decision given in one country, that's the host of a fairly atypical, malformed and out-of-control patent system?
Because the US government spends a considerable amount of time and effort trying to push their concept of 'Intellectual Property' on the rest of the world.
Then Google would have to buy Microsoft, Nokia, and Apple.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
"Getting rid of patents, at least in software, would free up vast amounts of resources."
That's the problem, isn't it. What would all the lawyers do for an income? Especially when many people have already passed the point of diminishing returns for more stuff?
Excessive bureaucracy is a from of "make work" to prop up a society that can not admit its socioeconomic model (based on an income-through-jobs link) is broken in an age of abundance from cheap technology (like from an Android-powered supercomputer in your pocket relative to a 1970s definition of supercomputer); see also this knol I put together on good and bad ways to deal with that:
http://knol.google.com/k/beyond-a-jobless-recovery
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.