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Comment by markokocic | Hacker News Reader

US patents can't be enforced outside of the USA. Why not just ignore US market and go on with the product in the rest of the world?

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US market is kinda big.

Not only big, the biggest one. But given increase in costs (MS tax, now Apple tax, tomorrow who knows) at some point it could be more cost effective for HTC to stop paying anyone and just not sell in the states. WO patents are much harder to get and very expensive to keep, so no big problem there.

> Not only big, the biggest one.

On the other hand, Nokia was the largest global handset seller at a time virtually nobody in the US market knew what it was. Ignoring the US market is viable, and the US market isn't for everyone. Look how many car manufacturers have tried and failed to make a go of it. (At least Americans can pronounce Nokia. Peugeot didn't stand a chance.)

> Not only big, the biggest one.

Statistics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_...) would disagree with you.

I'd argue that you're using the wrong statistics. You should also take into account the average cost per mobile phone when determining the size of a market.

If the US market is 3X smaller than China's (by volume), but spends 3X more for each phone, then the markets are roughly equivalent in the terms that a company would care about: profits.

Yes, I totally agree with you... But do you have access to such data?

The biggest market is the EU.

Not really. China is possibly the biggest market and if cost factor is factored in, India is perhaps the second biggest market for smart phones. The middle class in both these countries far exceed the entire population of the US. While they may not be able to afford a 600$ smartphone, they can definitely afford a 200 - 300$ one. HTC may as well focus on this segment and make cheaper smart phones. To hell with Apple and it's patents.

Yes, but at the same time it's only 1/20 of the world market, so getting banned in the US isn't end of the world.

The U.S. market is kinda shrinking (relatively, at least). Do you think the new, rising economies are going to embrace these U.S. rules?

From a purely selfish point of view (European software developer) I say bring it on, saddling U.S. software companies with these ridiculous rules should eventually make my life easier competing against them. I'll quite happily infringe these "patents" and sell my good outside the U.S.

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