FE Editorial : Patently problematic
The Financial Express: Aug 27 2012, 02:41 IST
Though Samsung’s engineers have already found an alternative to Apple’s ‘bounce’—one of the six patents the US court has held Samsung has violated and needs to pay damages of $1.05 billion for—there is little doubt that the entire Android-based smartphone industry needs to be quaking. Indeed, given that Android-phones—which run on Google’s software which is licensed for free—outnumber Apple phones four to one, Apple’s larger battle is with Google. But apart from what the court ruling means for Samsung and Apple’s financials, there are larger and disturbing issues that have, once again, been highlighted. This is best exemplified, of course, by the US federal appeals court judge Richard Posner who, two months ago, dismissed an Apple vs Motorola case saying the US patent system was in chaos.
But only the naïve would believe companies won’t fight bruising patent battles when they’ve invested billions in acquiring the patents, nor is it clear just who is copying whom. While one estimate, in the Wall Street Journal’s law blog, is that the current trial cost upwards of $500 million including $4 million apiece for expert witnesses, this is tiny compared to what the patents cost. Google, for instance, paid $12.5 billion to buy Motorola Mobility’s patents and a group of tech firms including Microsoft, Apple and RIM paid $4.5 billion for Nortel’s patents—Google had bid $900 million for this earlier. Google, for the record, filed a lawsuit against Apple last week on the basis of the patents it bought from Motorola arguing that a
Previous Story Column : India Inc desperate for cover Next Story Coal vs coalition
Reader's Comments| Post a Comment
Be the first to comment.
