“The man who co-founded Apple – the world’s most valuable company – in the garage of Steve Jobs’ parents, fears the torrent of intellectual property lawsuits being filed by companies such as Apple, Samsung, Google, HTC and Nokia could prevent future entrepreneurs from treading a path to technology fortune.” Well, mr Wozniak, you are, technically, still an Apple employee. Shouldn’t be too hard for you to get an audience with mr Cook.
“Well, mr Wozniak, you are, technically, still an Apple employee. Shouldn’t be too hard for you to get an audience with mr Cook.”
He does mention that Apple are the “good guys”, so it doesn’t make much sense for him to talk to Tim.
I don’t think any company can stop this on its own, it’s how the war is fought within the patent rules. These rules need to be changed. Even if all the “normal” companies stop this patent stuff the patent trolls will still continue.
I also find it extremely annoying that people so quickly leap from “patents are problematic” to picking a side in every patent battle and whining endlessly about the perceived bad guy. There are no winners, there are no good guys. The companies to a great extent have to fight these battles since they have to maximize shareholder value, and they have to attempt to keep a level playing field.
It is a no-brainer that Android is in perfectly legitimate patent trouble under the current system, what we learn from that is that it is the system that is flawed. Giving Google a pass to take over the mobile market without having to face patent challenges would just leave us without a level playing field, unless everyone pledges not to sue another up and comer either. Google is rather unique in that it is the largest company built on the back on what is basically a single patent, US 6,285,999, PageRank, and certainly no one else is getting into the search market by using that technique. That is not to say that Google is a bad guy either, but they, like everyone, are on both sides of the problems with patents.
Apple is not the problem, the system is. If anything the intense activity at the moment will help facilitate the system getting some much needed changes.
Apple IS part of the problem, more so than other companies, for two very valid reasons.
a) Apple is by far the largest company in this business, and thus, they have the money and power to change it – but they choose not to, and in fact, lobby laws to strengthen their ability to sue the little guys into oblivion (the recent patent “reform”).
b) They are one of the most aggressive – if not the most aggressive – abuser of the system, and thus, contribute to its continued existence much more so than others.
Even within a system a company can show good faith, and as far as patents go, Google has demonstrated such faith. They have not gone on the offensive in any way, shape, or form, unlike its competitors, despite the lure to do so being quite high at this point. I’d love for them to do more to change the system, but to make it seem as if Google is just as bad as Apple [re:patents] is ridiculous, at best.
How? And why should they spend their money to help out competitors?
I don’t think it really does matter how big or rich a company is. There are patent trolls out there that manage to get their hands on a single key patent and use it to extract money from companies that are bigger and richer.
The law has made the rules by which companies now fight each other. It’s the law and the rules that have to change. Sure Apple can lobby for that, but I don’t think their lobbying power depends on how rich they are, unless they want to bribe people.
In the undying words of Mitt Romney – “Corporations are people, my friend”(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlPQkd_AA6c)
Because of game theory? Tobacco industry is the prime example of game theory in practice. The ban of cigarette advertisement has only led to higher profits for the tobacco industry.
Their limitation of exposure to aggressive lawsuits from non-competing entities carries more benefits than competitive advantage.
I think history has shown that industries aren’t likely to change themselves. The record companies are still fighter their own customers for example.
A big problem with patents is that they have cost money to aquire and no one (companies and shareholders) wants them to become worthless.
But I think a good first step would be to stop companies getting patents on silly and obvious stuff. The next step would be taking a look at patents on silly stuff already granted.
Also I don’t think companies should be able to sue based on patents they have never used or never plan on using in actual products.
MOS6510,
“I think history has shown that industries aren’t likely to change themselves. The record companies are still fighter their own customers for example.”
I don’t think they’re likely to change either, but unlike you I don’t believe it’s because they cannot, but rather that they choose not to.
Patents obviously favor the long-time established players over newcomers. It doesn’t make business sense for an MNC to throw away that leverage even if it’s the right thing to do. So I don’t expect big businesses to do the right thing.
However the real disappointment comes from the governments who’ve lost the capacity to serve the public interests. The government lost this ability precisely because those in charge are the very same people running the corporations.
They choose not to, because they can’t really choose to do so.
Patents are acquired by innovation, take overs, trading them or just buying them. They are used to defend, attack the competition, prevent competition or to make money. Why would any company that has these patents and thus invested money in them to give that up?
Sure it would make a better world, but companies only look at themselves and their bank account, as do their shareholders.
I don’t think it’s fair to those companies to outright abolish them, but step by step certain patents can be made less relevant or taken away. There are so many examples of silly and obvious patents that sane people can’t understand why these things have been patented.
MOS6510,
“They choose not to, because they can’t really choose to do so.”
They can’t be responsible for their own actions? Oh for god’s sake cry me a river. They have a choice to behave like patent trolls or to use patents defensively. The aggressors *choose* to fight in court rather than in the market, they *choose* to lobby the government to legalize the software patent racket, those *choose* to patent the most pathetically trivial ideas conceivable. How the world would be such a better place if only our poor corporations could choose to do the right thing instead of being forced to not, boo hoo.
If “they” don’t patent every single stupid idea someone else will and will sue them. That’s a situation created by the law ‘n’ rulez, if that changes the situation will change.
It’s not realistic to think or to expect commercial companies suddenly change in to saints and give up their investments and power just to please you and their competitors. The only reason to do so you have suggested basicaly comes down to “because it’s nice”.
Banks have proven to be evil, did they change?
MOS6510,
“If they don’t patent every single stupid idea someone else will and will sue them. That’s a situation created by the law ‘n’ rulez, if that changes the situation will change.”
Except that corporations inordinately take part in drafting, sponsoring and passing bad laws in the first place, you are acting like they’re totally innocent players with no control over the game. Powerful corporations are both the cause and effect of notoriously pro-corporate laws in government. We will be doomed to serve corporate law under this vicious cycle until we recognize and negate their influence over our governments.
“It’s not realistic to think or to expect commercial companies suddenly change in to saints and give up their investments and power just to please you and their competitors. The only reason to do so you have suggested basicaly comes down to ‘because it’s nice’.”
The notion that corporations have no responsibility for their own behavior needs to die now. We cannot encourage good corporate behavior so long as we allow them to disassociate themselves from ethical implications of their own actions. Making excuses for corporate bullies does not move us forward and has to stop. There is no excuse for bad behavior, period. Where does this entitlement come from anyway? Shareholder profit is not a valid excuse and we should not tolerate it.
i’m not defending big companies or making excuses. I want to get rid of the patent system too and I propose changing laws i.e. forcing companies to change the way they operate.
Your solution seems to call upon their morality and I don’t think that will work. Certainly not with the bigger ones. It also doesn’t work if not ALL companies become nice.
There are still patent troll out there and if they become nice they cease to exist, so they’ll never do that. My suggestion is that they either start making products based on the patents they own or lose them.
Nonsense, there has always been a simple solution for that. Simply publish every single stupid idea you get, and you have instant protection against the case of someone else patenting it and suing you.
So my suggestion to be unable to patent silly ‘n’ obvious stuff is nonsense, but your idea to patent everything, including the kitchen sink, and then basically give it away isn’t?
Doesn’t this come down to the same thing (no suing over silly stuff), only my solution does away with all the administrative work?
Your solution still leaves the door open for patent trolls and companies that don’t patent to give away free.
Well…. Actually ever since corporate personhood was introduced way back in the middle ages they aren’t allowed to do anything that will hurt themselves. It’s not that they aren’t responsible, it’s that they are not allowed to actively harm themselves.
It’s a sunk cost. But people should have the initiative.
I think you might have missed the fact that laws already prohibit “patents on silly and obvious stuff”. That isn’t stopping the patent lawyers from twisting the words in such a way, that even the most obvious stuff is presented and the most genius invention EVAR!!!
What needs to stop, is the practice of gaming the system. It should be heavily penalized(lawyers should just get their licenses revoked for that practice, once and for all).
With that I highly disagree. The only reason why a patent shouldn’t be enforceable is if you hide it, aka submarine patents. The idea behind patents is public disclosure.
Nonsense. It’s like saying that any country can’t stop being an aggressor, since everyone engages in war. There is a distinction between aggression and defense.
Any company can start behaving decently, and not to engage in patents aggression and patent protection racket. Apple is one of the worst in that regard, and if anyone should stop this sheer nonsense for the benefit of the society – it’s Apple.
Edited 2012-04-10 20:01 UTC
Apple is the most sued company.
That may be. It doesn’t change the fact that Apple is a notorious aggressor as well.
They are, but why would they stop suing other companies? It would mean they themselves would continued to get sued and other companies can walk away with their patents and copy their products.
If Apple, and other companies, aren’t stopped by law there is no incentive for them to suddenly stop suing each other, because there will always remain companies that will sue over patents and rip off ideas ‘n’ products.
These are commercial companies, they’re out there to get money and grab marketshare. It makes no sense for them to give up money and power to only gain more competition.
If you work 5 days a week, would you give up 4 days (+ 4/5 of your salary) so 4 jobless people can work too? It would make the world as a whole a better place, but not for you personally so my guess is you won’t do this voluntarily.
You seem to ignore the difference between defense and aggression. On numerous occasions Apple used patents aggressively, on companies/projects who didn’t attack them first. So let’s make it clear – defense is OK, aggression is not.
That’s a completely flawed logic, which can justify any kind of atrocity, if for some reason (like corrupted power bought by those who benefit from holes in the law?) there are no fitting laws around to forbid it.
Edited 2012-04-11 07:39 UTC
I aim to have a situation where there is no defense or aggression. If you can’t patent the obvious you can’t attack based on it, nor would any one need to defend themselves.
If there are holes they can/need to be plugged. This isn’t an unusual practice.
But if you think my idea to change the law won’t work, because companies will find holes or use their influence, what makes you think they will behave nicely if you just ask them?
There is a need to improve the law – that’s not a question. I don’t expect those who act indecent now, to behave nicely if you ask them.
We were talking about that Apple and others who act aggressively and engage in patent protection racket, can’t claim that they are blameless just because the legal system is broken or because “everyone does it”. They bear their responsibility for abusing the system.
Edited 2012-04-11 08:15 UTC
Of course they do, but I don’t care about who killed who, I’m thinking about what might solve this situation. Determining who has the most blame doesn’t solve it.
I don’t think you can’t just abolish the whole system today. It’s not communist Russia where you can take away rights and property from companies or people just like that. These patent owning companies invested a lot of money. If you just took that away I wouldn’t be surprised if a number just left the country as they can’t thrust the government anymore.
So I think it needs to be done step by step. And a first step would be not allowing patents on the silly ‘n’ obvious. Not just because it’s silly ‘n’ obvious, but also because it didn’t take a lot of effort or cost those companies a lot of money. So not a lot of financial damage.
From there you can scale down the whole system over time. For example shrinking the expiration date of patents. Or invalidate patents by companies that don’t use them to build products. Patents should protect from unfair competition, if just used to sue it’s doesn’t serve this purpose. Patent trolls should thus either build something or sell the patents off, or risk losing them.
Except… Patents aren’t technically property. They’re government imposed monopolies, and in essence, are owned by the government. The US has, in the face of a stagnating industry due to patents, forced patent holders to license their patents (essentially making them void).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wright_brothers_patent_war
Patents had completely stopped the production of airplanes, and the US government stepped in and forced them to license their patents for pocket change.
This can be done again. If Apple, Microsoft, Google, IBM, and Oracle sat down today to agree on a cease fire and eliminate software patents, we’d have a proposed bill by the end of the year, signed into action next year, and exported to the EU a little after that. Heck, they could do it all at once.
This isn’t rocket science.
However, these companies don’t want to do that. They are actively and purposefully taking part in this system, which makes them unethical and direct threats to the technology industry – quite possibly the biggest threat the industry has ever seen.
Patents stagnated the development of the steam engine, crippling the British economy. Patents stagnated the US airplane industry, leaving the US vulnerable at the onset of WWI. The same will happen to the technology industry if we don’t intervene. The end result will be that the next big wave of innovation in tech will come from Asia, and not the west.
Edited 2012-04-11 08:42 UTC
Then why don’t they do it? Probably because they’re better off in the present situation, apart from Google.
You can’t change this by wishing for it, nor would the public demand change as they don’t even know what’s it all about should they even care.
So, you’re agreeing with me that Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Oracle, etc. are scumbags? That’s a pretty big step forward for you, you know
.
As for Google – they haven’t done any aggressive patent litigation as of yet, but they are still a company, so I ain’t holding my breath.
Well, all companies are scumbags and bigger companies are bigger scumbags. Yes, that does include Apple. But I can understand why they do it or why Microsoft does it.
Google probably won’t, because they’re not that strong in the patent arena and are in a way very vulnerable as their only real income is advertisement.
As long as companies can make money off patents or use them to better their position they’re not likely to stop doing it just to create a better planet.
This does include Google as their search technology is based on a patent they borrowed. If another search engine would use this method and do it well Apple can just flick the switch on the iOS devices costing Google billions of dollars. Then they’d have a much harder time offering “free” services as a method to push other companies out of the market.
Not all companies are scumbags. Red Hat for example is actively against software patents. As well as all open source companies in general. So I won’t paint everyone in the same color.
I’m sure if you search long enough you can find bad things about Redhat. I’ll give you that they’re probably not on anyone’s top 10 list of evil companies, but then again they’re also not on many top 10 famous companies lists.
In the past I have used Red Hat (as it was known back then) and I should still have a bunch of stickers.
“I’m seeing a ton of people complain about it, but not even a hint of a fix from Redhat.”
“I was let down by RH on this one and may try the latest SUSE and Ubuntu Server distributions even though we have a RHEL support license.”
“I will say this about Red Hat. The folks there can be kinda arrogant and “we’re superior to you†in their attitudes.”
Well, I didn’t say they are ideal and perfect in every sense of the word. But they are not scumbags, and they are against software patents
Because of the winking smiley I’ll put them on the non-scumbag list.
In server / industrial solutions Red Hat is quite well known, and is popular at present.
Yes, but they don’t seem to make the headlines of the mainstream news, making them little known amongst the general public.
As for Google – they didn’t sue anyone for using Hadoop for example, even though they first developed map reduce as a clustered processing approach. Oracle or someone else in that field wouldn’t hesitate to sue I expect.
You’re probably right about Oracle, but unlike Redhat it’s much easier to make a list of nastiness Google has done, is doing and might do.
They’re pretty much on the same level of being arrogant like Apple is, they just put in some effort to hide it, while Apple makes no such effort.
It seems a lot of people think “do no evil” proves Google doesn’t do anything nasty.
I just read in a Swedish newspaper where a chinese man claimed that in China, people buy Samsung not only because they prefer Samsung over Apple, but because they were upset over all Apples lawsuits.
It’s impossible of course to validate this, but I still think it’s interesting.
The reason for the consumer pattern can of course also (equally difficult to prove) origin from more political/regional interests.
Where has he been all along? Did he just wake up?
Edited 2012-04-10 20:02 UTC
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/2012/04/p…