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Are Patent Wars Worth the Price Tag?
ericjones12398 writes "It's beginning to feel like a TV series, a weekly patent war drama. Apple and Samsung have consistently been going back and forth with claims of IP infringement, to the point where who is accusing who of what is exhausting to follow. The question I would like to ask and try to answer is what the opportunity costs are of pursuing litigation versus just toughing it out? Would it be more economic for both companies to live and let live, or is there value to be captured in legal finger pointing? My best guess would be that this isn't about stopping sales this quarter or next, nor is it about defending the small-scale tech features that merely mildly differentiate. It's instead about momentum and branding. Winning these cases is PR that says, we are the leaders in smartphone technology, we are the innovators."
This is more about the legal department making decisions. Are they going to decide "Let's not do any litigation!"? Of course not. They will always pick a choice that keeps them employed.
To the community at large: no. End of line.
William George
I am convinced that at least 99% of patents are useless. They are trivial expansions on previous patents, maybe changing the temperature of an annealing, maybe adding .01% more chromium, or changing the angle of a gear surface by a degree. Software patents are far worse them mechanical patents, and I have not heard of a single one that is not obvious to someone skilled in the arts.
If those companies spent half on research what they spend on patent lawyers, they'd beat the competition in products and build up their internal skills to keep their edge.
Patents are the first refuge of the unskilled.
Infuriate left and right
After a few years of these patent wars, all the Googles, Apples, Microsofts, Samsungs, etc have big war chests that they can win some battles and lose some battles. unfortunately, battles will kill the smaller companies and keep the existing big companies in place.
Status quo all the way baby...it's a new world.
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
If you can spend $20M on litigation and it gives you a monopoly over a key feature in a market worth even a few billion, it may well be worth it.
Whether it's worth it to *society* is a different question, one that has to do with when and to what extent patents actually do their job of promoting innovation.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
A little part of me wonders if the lawsuits are as much a strategic business plan to foil the competition. Y'know, like throwing around some bad press will dissuade investors, and a court ordered delay for a product's entrance to market in a particular region will cost the opponent so much in revenue, and allow the plaintiff time to get a foothold in the marketplace. Sort of 'gaming' the legal system to get a competitive edge, without so much concern for the outcome of the suit.
Nail, head hit. It means that someone who has something truly innovative either faces the choice of being bought out by a big company for pennies on the dollar of what they are worth, versus being forced into bankruptcy.
And people wonder why zero R&D is done in the US these days...
My personal belief is *any* public policy that favors huge corporations over small business is a job killer. It's not the huge corporations that are creating the jobs and it never will be again unless the U.S. goes to 3rd world status and people start taking jobs for $1 an hour.
That means patents. It means tax law and abatement. That been big money lobbying.
You can list all day.
A patent is a contract between the inventor and the government. The exchange is:
1. The government grants an right to the inventor to prevent others from practicing the invention for some period of time, currently 20 years.
2. The inventor publishes in the patent the details of the invention which would give others the ability to practice the invention.
So it's worth it if having the details of the invention published outweighs the costs associated with the restriction on practicing the invention.
Your mileage will vary depending on the nature of the invention. The less obvious it is the more likely you will come out ahead.
For the vast majority of the inventions that Samsung and Apple are quibbling about the answer is pretty simple to see. It's not worth it.
These patents should have never issued.
We're moving in to milk it dry, wait for the infrastructure to rot out, and then move on like locusts to another country we can develop, exploit, and then impoverish.
It's called shock economics - was popular in the 80's and 90's on the international scene (I think they re-branded it and call it austerity now). It is a theory based on breaking unions, abolishing the middle class, privatizing everything in the interests of global companies, and creating two distinct classes of folks - rich and poor. Many of it's proponents and architects came from the University of Chicago. . . . And it seems that they've turned their sights on our country in the last ten years.
There's a book out called the Shock Doctrine - it's about the IMF's and US's involvement in South America, Europe and the Middle East, and our policy of shocking an economy back to health. It's older at this point, but it's main ideas are still relevant, and startlingly similar to what we have going on in places like Greece, and the early stages of what's happening here in the US. Privatize (for a profit for my buddies), because private industry does it soooo much better. What's that? Health care - NOPE. Living wage? NOPE. Suck on that po' folks. But I digress. It's a good book, and is just the start of the rabbit hole.
In many ways, patent wars resemble a version of the Prisoner's Dilemma.
If both companies sue each other for patent infringement, they both lose. If neither company sued the other, they would have a pleasant status quo. But if just one company sued the other, they would win big.
Although both players know that they'd be better off if they didn't play, it is literally a logical certainty that they have to sue each other.
I'm not sure how "make a cross licensing agreement and move on" fits into a classic Prisoner's Dilemma, but why let real life complications get in the way of a good philosophy metaphor.
What is most interesting to me about this is that patents were originally created to encourage companies to share their designs instead of hording trade secrets. In the current climate, however, many companies are more inclined to keep their products closed source rather than risk having someone sue them for patent violation. Perversely, a highly litigious patent climate encourages the exact behavior that patents were intended to remedy.