It was never about buying patents but about how a company uses those patents.
To my knowledge, Google was never in the offensive with their patents. They are stocking up to defend themselves.
To my knowledge, Google was never in the offensive with their patents. They are stocking up to defend themselves.
And when they do, they'll have all these patents!
edit: To clarify, I think it was a good idea they got these patents, but as for being used offensively I think the question is "how long until" rather than "if".
I like Google, and I see that they need this deterrence, but let's not pretend that bad stuff can't happen.
IBM, with over 45,000 patents, could easily and completely shut down every single aspect of the technology industry if they wanted. The fact that they haven't in its 100 years is a testament to the clearly more superior way of competing in the market to win out.
It's all supposing and it could go either way but early intentions only count for so much.
I'd like it if Google held their principals but it's hard to look at them and not see their principals eroding just a little bit over time and wonder if this might be one of them.
After all, they have a relatively weak portfolio right now and you could argue that their lack of offensive action to date is as much a case of them bringing a knife to a gun fight as a matter of principal.
Those patents will be used to protect Google from a company suing them, when Google arguably copied their product (iPhone, iPad) which was totally new under the sun.
Yes, the patent system is fscked but there must be some protection for companies inventing new ways of doing things.
Every manufacturer had failed for many years to build something really good -- and the ones without internal problems (Nokia, Microsoft) copied Apple's ideas to compete. So ideas aren't "worthless".
The ones doing the copying might end up eating Apple's lunch.
You can make an argument for that real innovation (not moving libraries from IE into the operating system) should have some form of protection.
(-: I'm doing a Devil's advocate here, thanks for the down votes, people... :-)
Not having a monopoly means Apple also has to keep improving their stuff.
No, the iPhone and iPad and all of Apple's products have been built upon ideas and inventions created by others outside of Apple. If I was made of time and money, I'd wander through the patents held by Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Intellectual Ventures, Nortel (Apple only recently got rights to their patents), HP, HTC, Samsung, Nokia, and the hundreds of other companies (trolls and product companies alike) and document the thousands upon thousands of patents that cover aspects of the Phone and IP
Then I would go through all the public records and and to the best of my ability guess how many of these patents were actually licensed by Apple prior to selling the IPhone and IPad.
My guess? (It is nothing but a guess, but still) I'd expect Apple incorporates 100,000's of thousands of patented features. And I would be shocked if they licensed anything over 50 percent of these patents.
Why do I think their license rate would be that high? I would guess they have a cross license agreement with IBM, TI, and Microsoft, which might cover nearly that many of the infringing patents.
Anyway, I had to respond when someone claims these products were "totally new under the sun".
They also incorporated steel -- an invention centuries (millennia?) old...
Point was, they did something new with the iPhone. The same thing with the iPad, when they invented a way to make tablets which people would pay money to use.
>>I had to respond when someone claims these products were "totally new under the sun".
You really didn't get the point...?