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~24,500 (~17000 Granted and ~7000 Pending)

That number of patents is "proof" that the patent system is broken. I have nothing against patents, but they need to describe actual innovations.

I have problems believing they had 24500 real innovations. If a company can produce 24500 patents, then most are not what I think of as innovations but just a result of standard engineering work.

You don't actually have to build something to file a patent. You just imagine what it might look like. You can do that pretty quickly.

A patent is a finite time period monopoly on the use/practice/sale of an invention. To innovate means to introduce something new. The two concepts aren't the same. E.g. You can patent something economically useless, you can patent something and not build it. As a practical matter its not clear to me if you can or should require patents to be linked to innovations.

Looks to me like they bought patents with a phone hardware company thrown in.

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