Software shouldn’t be eligible for patent protection?

In my view, the solution is straightforward: software shouldn’t be eligible for patent protection. That might sound simplistic, but there are good reasons to think abolition of software patents is the right reform. Software is fundamentally different than other types of inventions. For starters, software is virtually alone in being eligible for both patent and copyright protection. This makes patent protection mostly superfluous. Second, writing software is an individual, expressive activity at least as much as it is an engineering discipline. We don’t expect novelists to hire patent lawyers, and computer programmers shouldn’t have to either. Finally, the “software industry” is radically more diffuse and diverse than the typical patent-eligible industry. Every business with more than a handful of employees has an IT department producing potentially patent-infringing software. No other category of patents has this characteristic.

Source: Forbes

Some winning cards in its legal poker game

Pierre Ferragu, an analyst with BernsteinResearch, believes the takeover of S3 will provide HTC with some winning cards in its legal poker game. It also shows, says Mr Ferragu, that the next phase of mobile-phone development will be driven at least as much by the courts as by consumers.

Source: Economist

Running to Windows Phone 7?

Sounds a bit dramatic but I wouldn’t be surprised if it makes them look at Windows Phone’s with a more open mind as a product strategy.

Apple’s early win against HTC has sent some Chinese phone makers running to Windows Phone 7, a source said. Mainland Chinese paper 21st Century Business Herald understood that local companies were adding or improving their support for Windows Phone and would use the new Mango build alongside or in place of Android. Huawei and ZTE were already planning to add WP7 devices, although for them it was to diversify their lines more than a defensive strategy.

Source: Electronista

Google - Need Coin to Trade

Google has “the same arrogance that Microsoft had,” said Ron Laurie, managing director of Inflexion Point Strategy LLC in Palo Alto, California, which counsels companies on purchasing intellectual property. “They had this combination of thinking patents were from the devil, while they were on a mission from God. After getting attacked so often, they started getting it.”

Still looking for patents, anyone …

“They find that, as you enter markets where there are other smart people spending lots of R&D dollars, you are going to use other people’s innovations,” Epstein said. “When it comes to buying access to the innovations, you need a coin to trade for that. They find that, ‘Damn, I’m going to have to obtain my own portfolio, so I can engage in the innovation negotiation market.’”

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Nortel Patents and Nash Equilibrium?

So, Microsoft apparently got together with Apple, EMC, Ericsson, RIM and Sony… and coughed up an insane $4.5 billion. It’s kind of brilliant in a nefarious way. With six companies together, they could each spend less than the $900 million initially pitched by Google… and then just all agree not to sue each other, but leave open the option to sue anyone else. And, given just how aggressive these companies have been with patents lately, you can rest assured that “license” demands will be made and there will almost certainly be lawsuits. Progress via the courtroom, apparently.

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