How Steve Jobs Patent-Trolled Bill Gates

theodp writes "Apple, which is currently waging IP war on Android vendors, is no stranger to patent trolling. Citing the Steve Jobs bio, Forbes' Eric Jackson recalls how Steve Jobs used patents to get Bill Gates to make a 1997 investment in Apple. Recalled Jobs: 'Microsoft was walking over Apple's patents. I said [to Gates], "If we kept up our lawsuits, a few years from now we could win a billion-dollar patent suit. You know it, and I know it. But Apple's not going to survive that long if we're at war. I know that. So let's figure out how to settle this right away. All I need is a commitment that Microsoft will keep developing for the Mac and an investment by Microsoft in Apple so it has a stake in our success.' Next thing you know, BillG was lording over Jobs at Macworld Boston, as the pair announced the $150 million investment that breathed new life into then-struggling Apple. So, does Gates deserve any credit for helping create the world's most valuable company?"

Comments

well, clearly

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who has been on the Internet more than 6 months remembers the "$150 million for Apple from MS" thing. It usually brings the Apple fanboys out of the woodwork insisting that neither the investment nor the promise of continued support were relevant for Apple's success and anyway Apple had SO much tech that MS was copying and MS would totally have had to pay out billions otherwise. (This implies that SJ willingly turned down the opportunity at several $billion out of the kindness of his heart, which is hilarious.)

Apple practically invented patent trolling

[walterbyrd]

Apple started the junk IP lawsuits in the 1980s.

Re:But Apple does not sue over that stuff

[MonkeyBoy]

So when you go out and build a better mousetrap, patent it so you can get a reasonable return for your vast amounts of research, design, & engineering on the mousetrap, it's okay for Samsung to rush a competing product to the market that rips off all the work you put into designing a better product, cut into your sales, and financially threaten your ability to produce future improvements?

We, as in human beings, can only create better products by being able to profit off the product of our labor. If you allow competitors to wander in after-the-fact and release a design for less (which they can do because their investment was less, copying a design costs less than creating something new), there's no incentive to design a better product, and the end result is stagnation.