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UN Wades Into Patent War Mess

Posted by timothy on from the in-other-news-nokia-apple-samsung-rim-motorola-google dept.

Rambo Tribble writes "The BBC is reporting that the worldwide, tangled mess of IP litigation has come to the attention of the UN's International Telecommunication Union. The agency has announced it will be holding talks aimed at reducing this massive drag on the digital economy. Good luck."

3 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. ITU will soon find this isn't its bailiwick by Shag · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Other acronyms are going to quickly get dragged into this, mainly the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) which is much more about this sort of stuff, and possibly the World Trade Organization (WTO) if, for example, Korea were to complain that the US ITC is being overly kind to Apple and should be letting Korean products in.

    --
    Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
  2. Re:Thank goodness! by roman_mir · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Wrong.

    The only wars US Congress declared were in:
    * 1812
    * 1846
    * 1898
    * 1917
    * 1941, 1942.

    --
    You can't handle the truth.
  3. Re:Thank goodness! by gbjbaanb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    unfortunately it looks like it already has - the investigation is into the use of 'essential' patents (ie boring stuff like GSM and JPEG patents) and not the use of crap like slide-to-unlock or the shape of a rectangle.

    In other words, Motorola, who invented useful things, is to be investigated for not letting Microsoft and Apple have them for free, whereas Apple, who had a vague idea on rubbing your finger on a screen in a left-right way, isn't to be investigated at all.