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Word just came down that Apple’s iPhone has been found to infringe on three patents held byMobileMedia, according to Bloomberg. It’s not clear which patents are in question, but in 2010, MobileMedia, a company owned by Sony, Nokia, and a company that licenses MPEG patents,took Apple to court over 18 patents dealing with screen rotation and call rejection.
MobileMedia is structured to “defend” the patents of Sony and Nokia without exposing the companies to counterclaims within the same suit—like in the Apple vs. Samsung case earlier this year. The screen rotation in question seems to be Sony’s, filed in 1999, includes language like ”by pressing the rotate button a maximum of three times for one image, the user can rotate the image clockwise.”
Unconfirmed reports are saying that the affected patents involve incoming calls, as well as transmitting camera data from a phone to another location.
We’ll update with more details as we have them. [Bloomberg]
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Get rid of Patents and have a free market, innovation drives the winners.
Sorted.
Maybe wait until this one’s finished though.
Who’s going to innovate without the protection of patents?
Everyone. Just as they did before the invention of patents.
Patents help people get the reward they deserve for innovating. In my opinion the full problem could be solved by only making a process patentable, not the end result. Company A makes product that does something, company B makes a product that does the same thing but they created there own method. Patent problem solved. (Can I patent this and sell it the the USPTO?)
Smartphone technology is such a fast moving sector that it doesn’t need the stimulation of patents to get people innovating. Secondly, its so fast moving that what really ‘inventive step’ or ‘state of the art’ has really become obsolete, and its just a case of large companies using their large sums of cash to patent anything and everything they jot on a pad of paper, thus pushing smaller, truly innovative companies out of the picture. While I think totally abolishing them is a step too far, a reform is way overdue.
Good products reward companies with sales, it’ll then take other companies like 6-12 months to catch up if they’re half decent which gives the original company that time to carry on innovating.
Simple, no need for patents, not like they do anything, they all copy each other anyways. Then we have to hear about the stupid patent wars which make no sense. I can understand not being able to copy a phone to a 100% likeness or call your company the same name. However it gets dumb when they have patents for obvious generic things like swiping on a touch screen…..
What about new start ups? People may have great inventions but companies have the money and can steal the ideas leaving the inventor to miss out.
That result of abolishing patents would probably cause the complete opposite. As companies would stop focusing on innovation but rather driving cost down. This is why Japanese technology brands have been struggling since the chinese brands with less innovation but cheap products for the masses have overwhelmed them.
Also as mentioned start ups would struggle as larger business have better distribution channels, tied in with their large scale manufacturing resources, etc. £1million pound start up would never be able to get the product to market quick enough and at a large enough quantity to compete with pretty much any global tech firm.
No patents would mean free for all copying, sack the designers lets just copy everything… Tut
Sony’s patent claim included language like this “by pressing the rotate button a maximum of three times for one image, the user can rotate the image clockwise.”
The rest of the claim follows
“Furthermore if it were attached to another object by an inclined plane, wrapped helically around an axis it would also describe our competitors once you grant this very broad patent. Screwed.”
Apple suffering at the hands of a broadly worded patent? Paybacks a bitch, ain’t it.
I’ll add my deep thoughts and commentary in response to this article on a separate piece here:
http://goo.gl/w3cTy