Comment by robtoo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by robtoo | Hacker News Reader

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I'm getting tired of lazy reporting gushing about how many patents are involved in this or that deal, but with little or no discussion of which patents these actually are and what they cover.

A few good patents trumps a big pile of trash any day. (e.g. the current Apple/Samsung spat is about just 7 patents.)

Also...

Google is clearly willing to pay to acquire patents, but they’ve reiterated time and time again that they won’t overpay for them. “This anti-competitive strategy is also escalating the cost of patents way beyond what they’re really worth. Microsoft and Apple’s winning $4.5 billion for Nortel’s patent portfolio was nearly five times larger than the pre-auction estimate of $1 billion,” [SVP and Chief Legal Officer] Dummond wrote today.

How do you get to be SVP at a $200bn company without apparently understanding that things are worth what other people are prepared to pay for them?

Worth here is most likely return on investment. If it costs $4.5bn to purchase the patents but they are only license-able for total of $1bn, or there's a chance someone could get them invalidated, or your violation targets figures out a way around them, you could have ended up spending $4.5bn for a lemon. Spending $4.5bn on an investment that doesn't at least break even doesn't look good to shareholders.

Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay if there is a market. There's a only a market when a buyer and seller meet. If someone is acquiring the patents not to (re)sell them, but to use them in an offensive or defensive mode, there is no market to consider what people will pay for them.

There clearly is a market for patents at the moment because large numbers of them have been changing hands, often with multiple bidders.

I'm not saying there isn't a market, I'm saying that the value of something is not solely determined by what someone else is willing to pay. That determines the price, but not the value.

But if someone purchases something without the intent to sell, that doesn't negate that it's worth/value can not be calculated.

It's probably cheaper to hire an army of lawyers and patent any old stupid idea. If buying these is more expensive, I could see their point. Who knows what the reality is.

Either way, patents are horrible and Google should have seen this coming and done something about it. Jointly grabbing patents and attacking the patent system politically seems like a good move. The best out come of all of this is serious reform.

I read it as "what they're worth if you're using them ethically".

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