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Google and Apple Spent More On Patents Than R&D Last Year
parallel_prankster writes "NYTimes has an interesting article about how patents are really stifling innovation in the tech industry. Today, almost every major technology company is involved in ongoing patent battles. Of course, the most significant player is Apple, industry executives say, because of its influence and the size of its claims: in August in California, the company won a $1 billion patent infringement judgment against Samsung. Former Apple employees say senior executives made a deliberate decision over the last decade, after Apple was a victim of patent attacks, to use patents as leverage against competitors to the iPhone, the company's biggest source of profits. At a technology conference this year, Apple's chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, said patent battles had not slowed innovation at the company, but acknowledged that some aspects of the battles had 'kind of gotten crazy.' It is a complaint heard throughout the industry. The increasing push to assert ownership of broad technologies has led to a destructive arms race, engineers say. Some point to so-called patent trolls, companies that exist solely to sue over patent violations. Others say big technology companies have also exploited the system's weaknesses. 'There are hundreds of ways to write the same computer program,' said James Bessen, a legal expert at Harvard. And so patent applications often try to encompass every potential aspect of a new technology. When such applications are approved, Mr. Bessen said, 'the borders are fuzzy, so it's really easy to accuse others of trespassing on your ideas.'"
Google and Apple Spent More On Patents Than R&D Last Year
I was going to submit this story this morning but I didn't because I couldn't find the source of this Stanford analysis that is mentioned (though not cited) in the article. Could someone please give me a link to a news release or PDF or anything? I thought I had pretty good Google skills but found nothing. The thing that worries me is that this headline lead me to believe that all the court fees and lawsuits are costing more than R&D. However the article itself says:
In the smartphone industry alone, according to a Stanford University analysis, as much as $20 billion was spent on patent litigation and patent purchases in the last two years — an amount equal to eight Mars rover missions. Last year, for the first time, spending by Apple and Google on patent lawsuits and unusually big-dollar patent purchases exceeded spending on research and development of new products, according to public filings.
So my first concern is that this is also about patent purchases so this could also be including that "per phone or per license" cost that you pay when you actually do license someone's patent legally and use the system as it was intended to work. Does anyone know if they're including this or just acquisitions of smaller companies that have patent portfolios as defense/attack mechanisms? Secondly, I'm concerned that we're only seeing public filings and these sums cannot reflect undisclosed terms for settling out of court and/or licenses that are not publicized.
Again, before people explode over this headline, I'd just like to get my hands on the data and verify that there is indeed a reason to explode over this. This isn't an apology for patents, this is just the most basic journalistic caution before I fly off the handle.
My work here is dung.
At the expense of everyone else.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
happens in the respective legal departments. Apple is the standout example. Piss poor iphone upgrade but lawyers on steroids.
Apple spend money on patenting what everybody else does, Google spends money on patenting real innovations that companies like Apple steal.
Right now, there's a huge profit incentive for patent trolls because of the huge payouts in damages when these lawsuits are won.
Either cap damages, or limit compensation to injunctions, to remove the huge incentive that companies have to make profit from patent battles.
Having these companies bickering over patents and billion-dollar payouts is bad for everyone, since they should be inventing new technology or at least fixing those iPhone purple flare cameras.
Patent law (and IP law in general) rakes billions of dollars through the business of government each year. Regardless of how obvious it is that IP law destroys fair competition, you are up against billions of dollars. Take a wild guess what drives and motivates the business of government: fair competition, or money?
that you can never truly own an IDEA forever, but they will fight like hell trying.
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
To avoid war, have the most & best weapons so you don't invite the weaker country to invade. Same with businesses both large and small.
"'There are hundreds of ways to write the same computer program,' ... And so patent applications often try to encompass every potential aspect of a new technology." Nothing new here. You need to be able to use some patent points to "cross license".
Lots of Apple's patents are the traditional pure mechanical features, though, which don't relate in the same way to programming.
I recall that there were long and nasty patent disputes over rubber tires, motion picture film, airplanes, etc. Does anyone know how these old battles compare to today's situation?
Remember Creative, the maker of Soundblaster cards? They were also one of the first makers of MP3 players. ("Less space than an Nomad, lame")
[in 2001] Creative applied for a broad software patent for a "portable music playback device" that bore minor similarities to the iPod, an Apple product that had gone on sale the same year. Once the patent was granted to Creative, it became a license to sue.
When Apple came out with its own MP3 player called the iPod, Creative sued... because it infringed on Creative's patent for a "portable device that plays MP3 files". Apple settled three months later for $100 million.
Afterwards, Steve jobs vowed never to get caught with his pants down again. When developing the new iPhone, he declared "we're going to patent it all". Basically, Creative took Apple to school on patents, and Apple learned real fast.
If math is not patentable, then stop giving patents on it. No, saying that you are doing the math "BUT ON A COMPUTER" does not mean that your patent is on anything other than math. So how about we stop this nonsense and get back to promoting the progress of the software industry?
Palm trees and 8
If you're a hundred-billion-dollar company, it's a lot easier to pay $billions for an idea that exists than to pay $millions in the hope that someone will come up with an idea.
If you're not a hundred-billion-dollar company, the reverse is true.
This is what haappens when we let attorneys build the system. It's almost written for them. No matter who gets screwed, an attorney wins, somewhere.
At the expense of everyone else.
I think it's more accurate to say that lawmakers enact legislation which benefits their campaign-financiers. This happens even when neither is a lawyer. However, one thing that's for sure: the campaign financiers are multi-national corporations.
'merica.
I am always stunned how fast a chinese company can tool a factory to push out cheap copies of electronics seemingly within days of a rumor or announcement. While I think some ideas and implementations are unpatentable (?), the fact that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of companies that are willing to spend zero amount on R&D and simply copy what other companies spend billions to develop shows that such patents are necessary .
It seems like we could mitigate a lot of the problems around IP patents (including Pharma and genetics) if we limited them to a life of 5 years from filing (software and processes) and 5 years from first commercial approval (Pharma and genetics) Once we fix that, we should look seriously at restoring some sanity to copyright law as well.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
3 Stories, 25 Comments Each. So at least we know what a slow news day looks like on SlashDot.
“His attitude was that if someone at Apple can dream it up, then we should apply for a patent, because even if we never build it, it’s a defensive tool,” said Nancy R. Heinen, Apple’s general counsel until 2006.
"EVEN IF WE NEVER BUILD IT" ... is this not the definition of a patent troll? Someone who has the patent but without a working product or even the intention of making the product?
Most of Apple and Google's patent-related spending was not on litigation but rather patent purchases, such as Google buying Motorola primarily for its patent portfolio. But the value of those patents is part of what enabled Motorola to invest in the R&D that produced those inventions in the first place. Effectively, Apple and Google financed R&D done at other companies. I don't think it's meaningful to draw such a bright line between "spending on patents" and "spending on R&D."
Good engineer: $60-80/hr
Crappy lawyer: $300/hr
Good lawyer: OMG$/hr
If you're going to bring in the suits, you'd better have the wheelbarrows of cash ready - which Google and Apple both do.
Really? So if china would set up its patent system in a way that forced US companies to spend ten times as much money to patent stuff in China to be able to do business there, that would be a good thing?
If only Google didn't have the temerity to create a competing OS and decimate iOS's market share, this wouldn't have happened.
Please C&D this thread... I have a patents that cover complaining about the patent system on a computer message board, blog, bbs, echo mail, in print and other non-verbal forms of communication. Even thinking about complaining about the patent system means you owe me money. Yes you did... gesturing counts too.. yes even that one.
How could it? You can't slow down something that doesn't exist.
Apple only does development. As far as I can tell they have zero published research.
The current patent system is harmful to society because it tramples on freedom. The purpose of patents is to provide an incentive for innovation and compensate inventors for their hard work. However, it should not infringe on the freedom of others. That would be counter to its purpose. Above all, the system must never serve as a carte blanche for a few to bully all others out of the market. What we need is something like this:
1. A special independent fund must be set aside to compensate inventors for their inventions and reward innovation.
2. A retroactive formula must be adopted to calculate the amount of the compensation.
3. The formula must be adjustable so as to establish the best return for society at large in terms of innovations.
4. Last but not least, whatever the formula chosen, it must never infringe on the right of the individual to copy and use any invention for whatever purpose.
Inventors should register and publish their findings as soon as they can because their compensation will depend on how much society like and use their ideas. Of course, we still need a Patent bureau and a system to manage claims and the proper registrations of inventions. The system should be as automated as possible.
The word "Spork" made it into the dictionary in 1909, but people had to wait 61 years before it was patented and trademarked. http://www.salon.com/2012/10/06/consider_the_spork/ How horrible it was for people to know what something was, but be totally unable to use it because there wasn't a company to own the idea. (:-)
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
So, at least for the movie industry, it was possible to avoid or minimize patent harassment by moving elsewhere. In today's world that's obviously impossible.
Actually, the movie makers moved to Jacksonville, FL in the early 20th century, before they moved to Hollywood.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
The idea that the patent system was founded on was protecting an idea so it can get to market without being stolen.
I think we've found with software patents, the opposite holds true. Software patents protect the big guys so little guys can't make any product.
Lets face it: Programming software is illegal. If you make any non trivial software, you trip over dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of patents you're not even aware even exist! This is because people are awarded patents on trivial things that everyone else already knows how to do. So programming is illegal, we just try and make aps with the hopes that no one is going to sue us. But at any time, someone could sue if they wanted to.
Because the big guys patents so many trivial things, non-trivial software trips over many patents. Patents do not protect the little guy. Patents protect the big guy from the little guy having a chance to compete.
God spoke to me
If only Google didn't have the temerity to create a competing OS and decimate iOS's market share, this wouldn't have happened.
Um... Pretty sure Android has more than 1/10th the market share of iOS.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The slashdot headline, and, to some extent, the slashdot summary, make it sound like Google and Apple are the only ones compiling bogus patents, but it works both ways, of course. They sue other people for patent infringement, but they also get sued. The big difference is that Google and Apple really do have R&D, and really do come up with at least some things that deserve to be patented, whereas the typical patent troll has never made any positive contributions, and is simply hoping to take advantage of the fact that the patent office doesn't really care whether applications are nontrivial.
I got subpoenaed last week by a lawyer from Google, because Google is getting sued by a patent troll (I don't know the name of the company), and Google wants to use the web site in my sig, which dates back to 2001, to prove prior art and invalidate the patent. It's apparently a business methods patent. You might ask, "How do you know that they're a patent troll when you don't even know the company's name, and don't know anything about the patent other than the fact that it's a methods patent?" Well, the way I know that is that I built that site, and it required absolutely zero innovation or creativity on my part. If you take a look a the code, you'll see that it's embarrassingly amateurish -- I think it was the very first Perl code I ever wrote. I simply bought the O'Reilly book on the Perl DBI interface, and built a bog-standard web-based front end for a SQL database. The database is nothing but a digital library catalog, the sole difference being that most such catalogs keep track of a physical collection of books, whereas mine is a catalog of books that are free on the web. It also has a feature where users can write reviews.
Responding to the subpoena (as I'm legally required to do) has been and continues to be a minor pain in the ass. But it's just absurd that any patent examiner allowed anyone to patent anything that went into my web site, because it required zero originality. For that reason, I feel like I'm doing something somewhat positive for society by helping Google deliver a smackdown to this troll.
Google and Apple are probably both companies that would benefit greatly from patent reform, including the elimination of software and business method patents. The big losers would be the patent trolls.
Find free books.
ROFLBBQ!!!! The moderators here are definitely pro-Google/Android. Sorry, n00bs, but Android didn't look anything like iOS until Google copied it. Rather than innovate, Google stole Apple's IP.
It doesn't matter how the case is decided, the lawyers always win...
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Don't bother posting on /. unless you agree with a philosophy of "to gang-bang Apple is good." /. revenue comes by way of Google, by the way?
What fraction of
It is amusing to watch the slow disintegration of the US.
...there's a max cap on any jury award for infringement limited to $100K total per lawsuit.
Litigants A and B speaking simultaneously: We bought this patent from our source before you bought the same patent from your source
Lawyers C-Z rub hands vigorously.
Is the buzzword for the new millennium.
I feel for you brother. It's the same reason why I basically changed industries. Involved in trade secret dispute, spent WAY too many hours being depo'd and then sitting in depos of the other side as a technical expert. Sure, we eventually won (settled in our favor), but sitting in law offices wasn't really as exciting as TV makes it out to be.
We allege, based on information and belief, ....
Now, Mr. X, this daily calendar entry at the top of the page. What do the stars mean? Not relevant to this matter? Could we have an off the record discussion about the "hot date" aspect...
You can't own an abstraction. This kind of obsurdity (TFA) arises from applying property rights to the immiterial. Restricting the free flow of ideas does not promote innovation.
Can we stop using the violence of the state to enforce monopolies over concepts? Can we please end this madness?
The idea that the patent system was founded on was protecting an idea so it can get to market without being stolen.
This is not true at all. The patent system was intended to give inventors an incentive to disclose and document how their inventions worked. It's to encourage growing the public domain, instead of everyone obfuscating everything to try to maintain trade secrets.
Ugh. What a pain in the posterior. However, look at the bright side -- you might meet some interesting people from Google, and/or convince them to add new Gmail skins.
If only Google didn't have the temerity to create a competing OS and decimate iOS's market share, this wouldn't have happened.
Um... Pretty sure Android has more than 1/10th the market share of iOS.
Not sure what that post even means, of course Android has more than 1/10th, they have the majority share now, hence the previous posters statement that they have decimated the iOS market share and continue to do so.