Technology Patent Wars
20/11/13 11:15
The Patent Wars
Recent reports are of a patent lawsuit taken out by a company called Rockstar against a number of tech companies including Google, Samsung, Asustek, HTC, Huawei, LG Electronics, Pantech, and ZTE.
This has caused some degree of uproar in the technical press as Rockstar is a consortium of Apple, Microsoft, Blackberry, Ericsson and Sony and the action is against Google (who do no evil! )
There are a couple of big issues here.
One is that Rockstar purchased the Patents in question from a defunct Canadian company (the fact that it is Canadian is irrelevant) and is now using them as weapon against their competitors.
Secondly, Apple has in the past been vocal against so called patent trolls (companies who purchase patents and then use them against target companies) as has Microsoft.
Thirdly, Google bid heavily for the Nortel patents but lost out to Rockstar.
My thoughts
I do not like the idea of Patent Trolls. I think that a patent should be nullified when the company who owns the patent goes bust or is purchased by another company. Any acquiring company could then re-submit a patent application if appropriate.
In any situation like this there are muddy waters. Is Rockstar being defensive or acting as attacker?
A potted history shows that Google (through its subsidiary Motorola) and Samsung have been active in using patents against some of the Rockstar consortium. Some of these patents have been so called FRAND patents (which they should not have used - according to many international courts) and other patents which have been held to have no basis.
Samsung have been found guilty by a US court of using Apple’s innovations without paying for them.
Microsoft makes a lot of money from patent licensing fees from companies selling “Android” products (Google’s mobile operating system).
Google and Samsung have a history of using innovations made by other businesses without consent. (1)
When talking about patent trolls I can take a leap and say that since Google paid vastly over the odds for Motorola and all its thousands of patents it was acting in a way very similar that of a Patent Troll.
I would suggest that Rockstar wanted to buy the Nortel patents as a defensive measure.
I can only speculate how Google would have used the patents had they won the auction. I cannot believe that they would have done anything but use the patents aggressively.
I base this on their aggressive use of the Motorola patents which they purchased just after they failed to buy the Nortel patents.
I suspect that Rockstar have decided that Google, Samsung and others should not be allowed to act in the aggressive way they are doing without consequences.
In the case of Google the patents could affect the whole basis of their Android operating system.
I do not believe that the current lawsuits will result in the demise of any of the companies but I do hope that the legal system moves swiftly enough to be effective if there is found to be breach of patent law which is tantamount to stealing.
(1) As do many other tech companies - it is the scale that is the differentiator here.
