Welcome to the patent valuation bubble. If the bidding for Nortel's 6,000 patents---$4.5 billion in cold hard cash---and Google's patent-happy $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility stretched intellectual property valuations just wait for what's in store. Simply put, any company with a significant technology patent portfolio will be in play. The patent arms race is on and now the valuation for patents has been set at "ridiculous" cash-rich companies have the go-ahead to gobble up portfolios that would have tanked stocks just a few years ago.
Let's round up the latest indications that we're in a patent valuation bubble. Reuters reports that Apple and Qualcomm are eyeing InterDigital Inc. for its patent portfolio. Never heard of InterDigital? You’re not alone. Of course that doesn't matter InterDigital has wireless patents. And I thought HTC's $300 million purchase of S3 was a bit of a stretch. Kodak's claim to fame is a bevy of digital imaging patents.
Software patents should be abolished. The alleged societal benefit of patent law is that it creates a financial incentive to innovate. The societal drawback is that it reduces competition, reduces the spread of innovation, and creates deadweight legal costs. Perhaps patents are necessary in the pharmaceutical industry. I know very little about that industry but it would seem that some sort of temporary grants of monopoly are necessary to compel companies to spend billions of dollars of upfront R&D. What I do know about is the software/internet/hardware industry. And I am absolutely sure that if we got rid of patents tomorrow innovation wouldn’t be reduced at all, and the only losers would be lawyers and patent trolls.
Ask any experienced software/internet/hardware entrepreneur if she wouldn’t have started her company if patent law didn’t exist. Articles like this recent one in New York Times promote the urban myth that the main beneficiary of patents are lone inventors whose idea is stolen by the big guys.
Yahoo Vs Facebook. The Samsung tablet ban: what it means and what happens next (in plain English) — Apple News, Tips and Reviews. Oh, That “Pull To Refresh” Thing In iOS? Yeah, Twitter Has A Patent App On That. Like that “pull-to-refresh” feature found in many popular iOS apps, including Twitter, Facebook, Tweetbot, Sparrow and others? Been wondering why Apple hasn’t implemented the same thing in its own apps, like Safari or Mail, for example, when such a thing would make for a dramatically improved user experience?
As it turns out, the reason why the feature hasn’t made its way into Apple’s core iOS apps may have to do with a patent application titled “User Interface Mechanics” – an application which lists the inventor as Loren Brichter, creator of Tweetie. You know…Tweetie? The app Twitter acquired back in 2010, which later became the official iOS Twitter client? Yep, Twitter is trying to patent “pull to refresh.” The patent app describes the innovation like this: Methods, computer readable media, and apparatuses for providing enhanced user interface mechanics are presented. Nothing to see here, carry on? Sure OK. Also, just to be clear, it was Britcher who said he wouldn’t enforce it.
Kickstarter Hit With Patent Claim Over Crowd-Funding. Kickstarter, which just recently celebrated the 10,000th successfully funded project in its 2.5-year history, is under siege by that most ubiquitous of foes, presently at least: patent litigation. Yes, the site that works so diligently to advance interesting and original ideas among the community is being shaken down by a company seemingly formed for patent-licensing purposes.
But whether we like them or not isn’t material if the patent is valid and granted, right? Here’s the patent: Methods and apparatuses for financing and marketing a creative work. The inventor is Brian Camelio, former studio musician for Journey (surely an albatross around his neck these days) and founder of ArtistShare, a perfectly legitimate and forward-thinking website which allows fans to “show appreciation for their favorite artists by funding their recording projects in exchange for access to the creative process, LTD Edition recordings, VIP access to recording sessions and even credit listing on the CD.”
When Patents Attack: Could Facebook Be Next? Paul Maritz has witnessed a number of patent skirmishes. The chief executive officer of VMware (VMW) spent 14 years at Microsoft (MSFT), much of it during the 1990s when the company was quickly extending its dominance and threatening older technology powerhouses. He remembers visiting Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Digital Equipment Corp., and other behemoths to essentially pay obeisance, ponying up for licensing deals that gave Microsoft access to key intellectual property—and kept the Redmond (Wash.) company from prolonged legal battles. “We had to do that,” says Maritz. “We were the new kids on the block.” He sees a similar dynamic playing out in the tech industry today. Part of the risk for the new generation of Web companies comes from their weak patent portfolios.
One possible battleground is in the data center. To date, database patent holders such as Oracle and IBM have had little motivation to target the open-source products with lawsuits. Mark F. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt Weighs In On Patent Issues: They’re ‘Terrible’ Eric Schmidt, Google’s Executive Chairman and former CEO, took the stage at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco today to talk about a host of topics, including the success of Google Apps, his feelings about Steve Jobs, Google’s recent acquisition of Motorola, with the conversation with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff even ranging into Schmidt’s thoughts on the current landscape facing the U.S. patent market. The executive chairman began by addressing the purchase of Nortel Networks’ roster of patents by a group of buyers that included some of Google’s rivals, including Microsoft and Apple. Fellow TechCruncher MG Siegler covered the back-and-forth between Google and Microsoft that unfolded in regard to the supposition that the group that bought the Nortel patents was effectively attempting to cut the legs out from underneath Android.
Of course, as Schmidt pointed out, under current law, this is illegal — the contemporary U.S. patent system does not allow for this kind of disclosure.
Google Patents 'Google Doodles' Google has acquired a U.S. patent for its popular cycling logo system, also known as "Google Doodles. " Patent 7,912,915 was granted on Tuesday, nearly 10 years after its initial submission in 2001 by Sergey Brin. The patent is entitled "Systems and Methods for Enticing Users to a Web Site.
" The abstract states the patent is for the invention of "periodically changing story line and/or special event company logo to entice users to access a web page. " In layman's terms, this means that Brin has patented the "invention"--and I use that term loosely--of changing Google's logo for special events and holidays. Related Slideshow: 20 Notable Google Doodles There's a little more to the patent--it also covers a "periodically changing storyline" or changing the Google homepage periodically (over a series of days, say) to make a story. That's right, folks...Google uploads its new logo design to the web server, along with information about the special event.